A state-of-the-art review on police accountability

Abstract

The method and results of a scoping review, based on the principles of a systematic literature review, on police accountability are presented with the aim of providing an overview of the characteristics of empirical research on the topic and the main themes covered in this research tradition. To our knowledge, no systematically conducted review has been undertaken although one could help to identify gaps in the (empirical) literature and give insights into the themes studied in this regard. Three main themes were discovered during the review; aside from police accountability as such, many studies related to police integrity or, to a lesser extent, historical facts concerning police accountability or integrity. Two of the most striking findings were the low number of empirical studies included in our thematic synthesis and the limited amount of methodological information reported in these publications. As such, the authors recommend more empirical research regarding police accountability and, more generally, sufficient methodological reporting when writing a publication.