Law Commons^™

Discipline And Policing, Kate Levine

Faculty Publications

A prime focus of police-reform advocates is the transparency of police discipline. Indeed, transparency is one of, the most popular accountability solutions for a wide swath of policing problems. This Article examines the “transparency cure” as it applies to Police Disciplinary Records (“PDRs”). These records are part of an officer’s personnel file and contain reported wrongdoing from supervisors, Internal Affairs Bureaus, and Citizen Complaint Review Boards.

This Article argues that making PDRs public is worthy of skeptical examination. It problematizes the notion that transparency is a worthy end goal for those who desire to see police-reform in general. Transparency is …