The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) state‐level public opinion (drawing on an original n = 16,840 survey) and 2) prior adoption of civilian review boards in large agencies. Results from over 1,300 police executives reveal that law enforcement leaders are responsive to elite peer adoption but much less to public opinion, despite overwhelming public support. Compared to appointed municipal police chiefs, elected sheriffs are less likely to support any civilian oversight. Our findings hold implications for reformers: we find that existing civilian oversight regimes are largely popular, and that it is possible to move police executive opinion towards support for civilian oversight.

中文翻译：

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自上而下的警察改革：警察行政支持文职监督的实验证据


警察对公众负责对于民主的运作至关重要。警察高管——实施监督政策的关键参与者——的意见是成功改革努力的一个未被充分研究的关键组成部分。我们对所有美国市警察局长和县治安官进行了预先登记的调查实验，以评估警察行政人员对公民监督的态度是否响应 1) 州级公众舆论（基于 n = 16,840 人的原始调查）和 2 ）大型机构事先采用民事审查委员会。来自 1,300 多名警察高管的调查结果显示，尽管公众支持压倒性优势，但执法领导者对精英同行的采用做出了积极回应，但对公众舆论的反应却少之又少。与任命的市警察局长相比，民选治安官不太可能支持任何文职监督。我们的研究结果对改革者具有重要意义：我们发现现有的民事监督制度在很大程度上受到欢迎，并且有可能使警察行政部门的意见转向支持民事监督。