1 Monitoring the Police: An Empirical Study on the Factors Affecting the Conclusion of Investigation Processes by an Internal Affairs Division 1

In the organizational structure of the police, the internal affairs division has the role of investigating professional misconduct attributed to police officers. When an improper conduct is detected, an investigation process is triggered. At the end of the investigation process, the complaint can be sustained or not. If the investigation discloses sufficient evidence to prove the accusation, the officer should suffer reprimand, suspension, termination of employment and criminal prosecution. There is room, however, for concerns regarding whether the process will be impartial, given that police officers may attempt at influencing decisions for their own benefit or, at least, try to postpone the conclusion of the investigation. In our paper, we analyze a sample of 143 investigation processes against police officers in the Internal Affairs Division of the Civil Police of the State of Bahia, Brazil. We seek to identify the factors that contribute to the investigation process are concluded or not. Our econometric results show that the position that the police officer has in the organization and his tenure on the job (which should be correlated with the extent of informal relationships developed within the organization) do influence the probability of the investigation will concluded or not. From the point of view of the individuals who are under investigation, the strategy of postponing the process is rational because once the process is concluded there is a high probability that the complaint will be sustained. Thus, results indicate that police officers seem to use formal and informal channels of influence to mitigate the threat of punishment—a conduct that is, therefore, misaligned with the public interest