The “Guarding the Guardians” Problem: An Analysis of the Organizational Performance of an Internal Affairs Division

Public administration scholars have proposed that efficient monitoring and accountability are key performance elements in public services. We contribute to this debate by focusing on the so-called “guarding the guardians” dilemma: monitoring commissions made up of public officials who may refrain from punishing their peers and turn a blind eye to certain deviations. In the police, this is the case of internal affairs divisions (IADs), which are organizations crafted to monitor the behavior of police officers. We expand the existing literature by proposing a set of hypotheses that are tested using a distinct data set containing detailed information on investigations against police officers performed by an IAD. We assess the organizational performance of the IAD by examining how various factors influence competing hazards of acquittal, mild and harsh punishment of the implicated officers. We find that high-ranking, high-tenured officers are less harshly punished with termination of duty, whereas the opposite effect is found with respect to cases with extensive media coverage. We also find that cases judged by specialized investigation officers increase the likelihood of punishment compared to cases assigned to temporary, rotating commissions, especially for cases with a long time span.