Summary
The Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police requested assistance from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to examine internal and external oversight bodies for police forces. PERF was contracted to research and analyze internal management structures of police forces to: highlight structures that incorporate appropriate challenge and oversight into executive decision-making; describe structural alternatives in place that enhance executive accountability to internal stake holders; assess a wide array of police force internal management structures and identify best practices based on accountability, transparency and results. External oversight bodies were also examined in order to accomplish the following objectives: describe the range of police oversight operations and identify those most conducive to policing in democratic societies; highlight oversight bodies that focus primarily on misconduct review versus those that are designed to provide general oversight; identify international best practices in police oversight based on those that best combine independence for policing operational functions and appropriate accountability, transparency and oversight of executive decision-making. This first report is dedicated to the research and findings of the internal management structure analysis.