What is one strength and one weakness of the Civilian Complain Review Board Model?

In the years since August 2014 when Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, the debate on police reform has intensified. Though much of this discussion has centered on reducing or preventing occurrences of excessive use of force by police, little policy change has happened. Offending officers are rarely held accountable and even law enforcement officers themselves acknowledge that they have few means to enforce accountability. In one survey from Pew Research, for example, only 27% of police reported that poorly performing officers are held accountable. Existing internal mechanisms tend to be weakly enforced and are susceptible to racial bias. The obvious conclusion is that police accountability cannot be entirely left in the hands of departments themselves. Rather, offending police should be held accountable by civilian oversight boards that include some representatives from the communities departments are supposed to serve.

Civilian oversight promises more equitable policing because it is a process by which non-police community members can regularly provide input into police department operations. In a study of citizen complaints, my co-author and I find that African-American men who live in the south side of Chicago are 2.3% less likely than other groups to have their complaints of excessive use of force sustained. Similarly, another Pew study found that roughly 40% fewer African Americans than whites believe that the police use an appropriate amount of force, treat racial and ethnic groups equally, or hold officers accountable. This racial gap makes minorities less confident in the police and less willing to cooperate with them. By bolstering confidence in police, citizen oversight boards with members of the community could increase and improve public cooperation and make communities safer for everyone.

your answer would be a. true