St. Louis
Significant Room for Improvement
Civilian review boards exist to provide independent, civilian oversight of law enforcement. In addition to civilian review boards, some cities also have inspectors general or oversight commissions, which are third-party government agencies or officials that provide external oversight of law enforcement policies and practices.
Dozens of jurisdictions across the country have some type of civilian oversight body, but despite the growing prevalence of civilian oversight in cities across the country, many communities have lost faith in their effectiveness. Effective oversight is only possible if oversight bodies are independent from the police department, representative of communities most impacted by police brutality, adequately funded, granted subpoena power, and equipped with full investigatory and disciplinary power.
For policy background and further resources, see our toolkit page on independent oversight here.
City Data
-
314,867
Total Population -
25%
Poverty status in the past 12 months -
1,300
No. of Police
Racial and Ethnic Demographics
-
3.9%
Latinx -
47.6%
Black/African American -
42.9%
White, non-Hispanic -
3.1%
Asian
-
0.3%
American Indian and Alaska Native -
0.1%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander -
0.9%
Some other race -
2.1%
2 or more races
Civilian Review Board:
Civilian Oversight Board
1Independence: Does the Civilian Review Board conduct investigations independently of the police department?
-
y
Does the Civilain Review Board conduct investigations independently of the police department?
2Investigatory Powers: Does the Civilian Review Board have necessary investigatory powers?
-
n
Does the Civilain Review Board have either subpoena power or administrative powers that enable direct and unfettered access?
-
n
Does the Civilain Review Board have the power to compel witnesses?
-
n
Does the Civilain Review Board have the power to compel testimony?
-
n
Does the Civilain Review Board have the power to compel documents?
3Disciplinary Authority: Does the Civilian Review Board have disciplinary authority?
-
n
Does the Civilian Review Board have disciplinary authority?
4Funding: Does the Civilian Review Board have necessary funding for thorough and timely investigations?
-
y
Are investigations completed within 120 days?
-
n
Is funding no less than 5% of the total police department budget
-
n
Is funding tied to the police department’s non-capital budget (so that increases in the police department budget result in increases in funding for oversight)?
-
n
Does funding cover an investigative staff, with at least one investigator for every 70 police officers or four investigators at all times (whichever is greater)?
5Community: Does the Civilian Review Board have membership that reflects the diversity, expertise, and connection to the community?
-
n
Does the legislation explicitly have a statement about diversity of the board?
-
n
Does the legislation require the membership of community members most impacted by police surveillance, abuse, and brutality?
-
n
Does the mayor appoint less than 50% of board members? (For true independence, members should not be majority-appointed by the mayor.)
6Public Access: Does the Civilian Review Board have public access that allows residents to file complaints through a variety of methods and during non-business hours?
7Policies and Practices: Does the Civilian Review Board have broad jurisdiction to investigate police department policies and practices (may also be in form of an inspector general or commission)?
-
y
Does the CRB, inspector general, or police commission have authority to review and make recommendations on police department policies and practices?
8Transparency: Is the Civilian Review Board transparent to the public on complaints and dispositions (without personally identifiable information)? i
Independent Oversight Methodology
Center for Popular Democracy researchers evaluated each jurisdiction based on a full set of policy criteria as developed in the Reform/Transform toolkit in collaboration with policy experts and advocates. Because the original tool is lengthy and the questions are numerous, we organized the full list of questions into a smaller number of thematic groupings. This process yielded 14 broad groupings of questions (which encompassed all of the sub-questions from the original, full-length tool).
Finally, we developed a ranking system to differentiate jurisdictions’ performance based on how successfully the authorizing legislation and/or other written policies governing their civilian review boards and/or other external oversight agencies fulfill these 14 broad criteria. Because not all questions should be weighted equally (some criteria are more essential to giving a policy teeth than others), our ranking system reflects researchers’ judgements about what components are critical to real accountability based on research and previous conversations with policy experts. Read more »