Civilian oversight
Civilian oversight, sometimes referred to as civilian review or citizen oversight, is a form of civilian participation in reviewing government activities, most commonly accusations of police misconduct. Members of civilian oversight or civilian review boards are generally not employed by the government entity which they are reviewing. These groups are tasked with direct involvement in the citizen complaints process and develop solutions to improve government accountability. Responsibilities of civilian oversight groups can vary significantly depending on the jurisdiction and their ability to become influential. Oversight should not simply criticize but should improve government through citizen support for government  responsiveness, accountability, transparency, and overall efficiency. Proactive civilian oversight improves transparency and demands accountability at all levels of government. Reporting and monitoring (financial records, performance measures, and open records... etc.) are now regarded as fundamental governance responsibilities. Citizen Advisory Boards are a way for civilians to be involved in government oversight. Other forms of government oversight include citizen committees, community panels, citizen juries, public participation, negotiated rulemaking, and mediation An effective civilian oversight committee is structured to take on the following responsibilities: create processes for risk governance, monitoring and reporting; create clear defined duties to improve effectiveness and avoid overlapping  work; recruit/retain members that are knowledgeable and engaged about policy; develop critiques that result in improved service outcomes; assign oversight responsibilities to designated individuals or groups for specific government functions; and reviews rolls regularly. Civilian oversight boards brainstorm ideas to improve transparency and create policy proposals. Most proposals regarding civilian oversight have been with respects to police activities, healthcare, non-profit and private sector. Civilian oversight over militaries, mainly used in democratic governments, puts the power to take military action in the hands of a civilian leader or legislative agency. Civilian oversight of the military or state security forces  is a key component of good governance. Giving power to the civilian component of the government over what a the military can do and how much it can spend the money given allows for the democratic process to be protected from abuse. Military legitimacy and effectiveness can be achieved if a country links democratic accountability to military professionalism. Security is a fundamentally political good provided by the state because it is based on a series of bargains about who will have power, how they may keep it, and how they may exercise it legitimately. Security is therefore not simply a  matter of technology and materiel, nor is it reducible to the mere existence of capable military units. Rather, security requires the existence of a capable military controlled by empowered state actors, themselves accountable to the law and the population. Since in democratic societies there is public pressure towards transparency and public participation in all issue areas, and since democracy and liberalization/democratization have become major elements in the international normative order that even non-democratic states have to refer to, there is a pressure towards the democratization of security politics and of the armed forces themselves. Definition and scope. According  to the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE): Dr. Kuehn's evaluation of the consensus on civilian oversight in the military is as follows:"A hierarchical relationship in which civilians make decisions that are binding for society as a whole, with the military responsible for advising on and implementing those decisions that have been delegated to them by the civilian decision makers. Consequently, the degree of civilian control depends on the degree to which civilians have the authority to make socially binding decisions, as well as sufficient oversight to ensure that the military fulfils its delegated functions in  the way that the civilians want (Welch 1976; Agüero 1995; Alagappa 2001; Feaver 2003). Accordingly, civilian control can be understood as that distribution of authority and oversight under which civilians are able to autonomously decide on all relevant political decision‐making matters, can delegate and repeal the delegation of political decision‐making and implementation to the military, and can oversee and direct the making and implementation of those decisions that they have delegated to the military." Change in political attitude. Civilian oversight is the result of a profound change in public attitudes toward government particularly related to trust. There is a lack  of trust between communities and government/business because of historical misconduct. Misconduct included racial discrimination during the civil rights era, illegal activities during the Watergate scandal, and more recently the general public disagreement with government bailouts and financial fraud like Enron scandal. All these actions have caused an increased demand in accountability. Trust is a measured by gauging how effective ordinary civilians feel local policies and authorities are in their duties as official. A series of laws have been created indicating the growing public concern about the need for oversight of government agencies. The new trend shows that parliamentary oversight  committees have existed only in the last two decades, revealing that the “parliamentarization” of the oversight of intelligence services started very late both in new and old democracies. Where scandals and new laws have out of a necessity to control problematic programs made civilian oversight a requirement over national security and law enforcement. Benefits and weaknesses. Benefit Increased focus on monitoring, reporting, strategic advising, value creation, accountability, and the creation of professional standards. Weakness or setbacks Accountability, transparency, and reporting are important to citizen oversight. Acts like Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have caused an increase in oversight responsibilities  requiring increased reporting, extensive examination of performance, and increased accountability of internal citizen oversight. Oversight can be excessive and ultimately detrimental to desirable outcomes, and administrators spend a significant amount of time on monitoring and less on strategies. Difficulty forming citizen groups, failing to function effectively, agency role is not visible enough or influential, group is abolished altogether. International. Civilian participation and accountability initiatives have become a common practice in democratic nations. Reporting and monitoring results are now regarded as fundamental governance responsibilities The growth of civilian oversight is not confined to the United States. Citizen oversight (particularly for the  police) is universal and has expanded across the English-speaking world and is spreading in Latin America, Asia, and continental Europe International Asian countries do not look at service-oriented policing like western countries. Asian democracies focus on defense and maintenance of established rules, reviewing and monitoring government actions and policing human rights violations, police corruption, and corporate management. Research in the United Kingdom has noted the importance of oversight of state functions such as prisons to ensure the fair and humane detention of vulnerable persons such as prisoners. Hong Kong's civilian oversight is considered to be far more  transparent, independent, sufficient at holding government accountable. Possibly a result of being largely more democratic, than countries like China. Nearly all Asian democracies have some form of oversight, but only 3 have civilian oversight. Internationally, in the developed world most democratic countries contain a well-established civil-military relationship. While most new democracies have had to work towards establishing the same kind of relationship to avoid civil-military conflict:"From a humanitarian perspective, civilian control increases the probability that militaries will operate with respect for the population because it increases accountability to that population. Democratically accountable civilian control is also associated  with more prudent internal uses of armed force. Militaries with excessive autonomy from the state—or with largely party- or identity-based lines of authority—often engage in corruption or coerce the population with impunity. But shortcuts to civilian control can also undermine security. Coup-proofing efforts, for example, can empower civilians but make the military less professional and effective. Civilians need to have the capacity to manage the military closely and in ways that do not implicate the military in domestic politics. Competent civilian controllers in an empowered Ministry of Defense (MoD) also serve coordination and centralization functions, saving  NGOs from having to conduct separate negotiations with different military commands and allowing them to work more effectively with the government. Thus, both the existence and the quality of civilian control of the military have direct impacts on the safety of the population and the success of humanitarian activities." History in the United States. The first organized efforts to conduct civilian oversight of police began in the 1920s. The table below is predominantly related to police oversight between 1920 and 1980. By 1980 there were about 13 agencies, and by 2000 more than 100 such as the Independent Police Auditor  (IPA) in San Jose, California and Seattle, Washington and the Office of Independent Review (OIR) in New York City, New York.