Independent Police Accountability Bodies: Comparative Perspectives on Complaints Against the Police

This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of Independent Police Complaints Bodies (IPCBs) in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. It explores the distinctive political, cultural, and institutional contexts shaping police accountability arrangements within each country, as well as the transnational dynamics behind the remarkable proliferation of IPCBs over the past three decades, assessing the prospects for future convergence around international standards.

Drawing on findings from the international project ‘Police Accountability: Towards International Standards’, the book examines the inherent dilemmas and challenges in the everyday functioning and dynamics of IPCBs. Each chapter presents integrated comparative analysis of key themes co-written by experts on police accountability in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. The scholars involved approach the topic from range of scholarly disciplines: police studies and public administration, law, sociology, human geography, and history. Its qualitative comparative analysis adds to the existing literature on IPCBs based on single-country research.

The book facilitates exchange of knowledge and experiences across political cultures and linguistic boundaries, revising theoretical perspectives and, through its empirical findings, providing scholars, complaint practitioners, and rights activists with unique frameworks to contextualise and assess current and emerging IPCB models in any country or jurisdiction.

This book will be useful reading for all those engaged in policing, public administration, rights activism, and law and policymaking.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 International license.

Anja Johansen is Reader in comparative European history at the University of Dundee, UK. She has published extensively on police-public relations, civil liberties activism, and developments of police accountability in France, Germany, and the UK across the 19th and 20th centuries.

Genevieve Lennon is Senior Lecturer in law at the School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University, Australia. She has published extensively on police law and policy, with a particular interest in accountability and human rights.

Hartmut Aden is Professor of European and German public law, public policy and public administration at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR Berlin) in the Department of Police and Security Management and Deputy Director of the Berlin Institute for Safety and Security Research (FÖPS Berlin).

Christian Mouhanna (†) was Sociologist and CNRS scholar at the Centre de rescherche sociologique sur le droit et les institutions pénales (CESDIP), France. His extensive, pioneering research and publications cover a range of topics relating to the sociology of policing, security policies, criminal justice, and penal institutions.

Marc Alain is Professor at the Department of Psychoeducation at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada, and founder and CEO of the Quebec’s National Police School Research Center (2000–2005). His publications in French and in English cover criminology, in particular juvenile delinquency, and police studies, including contribution to the development of policy and programme evaluations in Quebec, Canada, France, Italy, and Chile.

Tobias Singelnstein is Professor of criminology and criminal law at Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, with a long research track record on German criminal law and criminal procedure. His publications focus on criminology, notably social control and society, policíng and the judiciary, and security studies.