Policing the police: Are early intervention systems preventing budding 'Bad Apples'? A review of literature and current practices

This paper reviews the available literature on early intervention systems to determine whether they are effective in identifying and modifying the behaviour of problem police officers. The paper makes recommendations about the weighting of such factors as citizen complaints and use-of-force incidents. The paper concludes that in spite of the controversies surrounding early intervention systems, they are integral to the functioning of police departments, and that Police departments must curb deviance within their own ranks by using these systems so that the trust and legitimacy of policing, as an important societal institution, is not compromised.