The problems with policing are structural: A community oversight board will address individual, not systemic, problems

A protesters walk down Lakeside Avenue towards the Justice Center during a rally, May 30, 2020, for justice in the death of George Floyd. Photo by John Kuntz, Cleveland Plain Dealer ("Protestors break windows, set police cars on fire as George Floyd demonstrations turn violent in downtown Cleveland").

The Washington Post reports ("Cleveland residents look to take police reform into their own hands") on an effort in Cleveland where a citizen referendum will be voted on this fall.  

If passed, it will create an independent commission to review and investigate complaints of police misconduct, including officer involved shootings, independent from the police department and local prosecutors, who are seen to be too much a part of the system to crack down on misconduct.  From the article:

If passed, the ballot initiative would amend the city charter to take the power to investigate misconduct out of an office within the police department and give it to the Civilian Police Review Board, which has existed since 1984 but would gain new powers under the amendment. Now, the board can only make recommendations on discipline. The amendment would empower it to investigate complaints against officers and directly mete out punishment. The police chief could disregard the board’s directives, but the amendment would give the final say over whether an officer is disciplined or fired to a 13-member civilian-led Community Police Commission, a board that was created by the 2015 consent decree but that is set to expire when the decree does. Members of both boards would be chosen by the mayor and the City Council.

This is a tough issue.  To me there are many problems with public safety and policing generally, and in center cities like Cleveland, but most people are only focused on one element.  Here are the issues:

• the volume of crime, shootings, and killings, especially in high crime neighborhoods more generally ("Most dangerous neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio," "Shooting unnerves Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood, but it remains among city's safest," PD)
• warrior policing and officer involved shootings -- which is what is getting the most attention
• zero tolerance policing, mass incarceration and lack of fairness in the criminal justice system ("White woman who stole $250K gets probation, while Black woman who stole $40K goes to jail. Disparate sentences spark calls for reform," Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• the criminalization of many social problems (as described in the book The End of Policing, "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented") and the failure of police response, such as with mental illness
• and relatedly, the redefinition of public safety more broadly, beyond strict policing (often called "defund the police")
• the rise in violent crime since the pandemic, especially seen in the rise of shootings and homicides ("How bad is the rise in US homicides? Factchecking the ‘crime wave’ narrative police are pushing," Guardian, "The US saw significant crime rise across major cities in 2020. And it's not letting up," CNN), including Cleveland ("One dead, more than a dozen hurt in another weekend plagued by gun violence in Cleveland," PD).

This proposed "reform" in Cleveland only looks at one issue.  An important one.  Key.  But maybe not even the most important.  From a "path dependence" standpoint, it will likely divert attention from all the other issues involving policing and public safety.  (A comparable issue in housing policy is a focus on creating "inclusionary zoning" programs instead of a comprehensive program and funding for the development of affordable housing at scale.)

Most importantly, it will focus on individual misconduct not structural changes to the department, criminal justice system, and the delivery of public safety in Cleveland.

Fullerton California as a counter-example:  completely revamps use of force, training, and other practices after the after a police officer beat to death a homeless man.  By contrast, when police officers in Fullerton, California beat a homeless man to death, it ended up leading to top-down, down-top overhaul of the department, including an annual independent audit of the police department.  From "Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?":

After the fatal beating of Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic (the city paid a big judgement to his family) rather than accept what happened as "an accident," the City of Fullerton evaluated various police processes and changed them, to reduce the likelihood of injury and death in interactions between the police and the public ("Here's how Fullerton police have improved since Kelly Thomas' death," Orange County Register).

The changes in practice were not limited to dealing with homeless people or people in mental distress, but in how all of the city's police officers interact with the public and how they are trained.

The police department has set a goal of being one of the best police departments in the country for its size, and measures its success in part   The OCR article reports on the most recent review:

The study offers a half-dozen recommendations – compared with 59 in its first review – that range from striving to use the least force necessary to more cautious foot pursuits.

.. Four years ago, OIR Group recommended that officers – when safely possible – employ less force by increasing time and distance, using cover and concealment, creating barriers, and calling and waiting for backup.

“The department,” the document says, “has substantially addressed many of the shortcomings we noted in our 2012 report.”

First, a new training room was built for officers to practice lesser-force techniques. Then, a video-based interactive training system was installed. It offers more than 200 bad-guy scenarios, and each one can be altered with the touch of a screen.

“These upgrades in training facilities,” the report concludes, “allow trainers to emphasize the importance of tactical alternatives to force, particularly deadly force.”

The training may be paying off. Citizen complaints have dropped from a high of 36 in 2014 to a low of 24 last year.

Still, the new report offers new suggestions. They include requiring incident reports to check off threat perception, least-use-of-force efforts, and adherence to reporting policies.

The process in Fullerton appears to be a national model, albeit a one-off that hasn't been adopted elsewhere, unlike the whitewashes that seem to be happening in most other cities when it comes to evaluating police departments and officers in terms of excessive force and deaths at the hands of police officers.

OIR Group reviews in Fullerton. (From their website.)  The death of a mentally ill homeless man following a brutal encounter with Fullerton Police officers created a public outcry for an independent investigation of the circumstances behind that death. The City engaged OIR Group to complete an internal affairs investigation into the involved officers’ conduct.  OIR Group also performed a full systemic audit of the Department focusing on force policies, internal investigations of force, the imposition of discipline, and police leadership issues.   

-- Fullerton Police Department: Audit of Force Reviews and Internal Investigations, August 2016
-- Interim Report Regarding Issues Surrounding the Death of Kelly Thomas, February 2012
-- Report to the City of Fullerton: Systemic Review of the Fullerton Police Department, August 2012