How do you report a corrupt police officer? Or the mayor, who effectively hires and fires the police chief?
How do you ensure influential people cannot make their police reports change or disappear? And there is public accountability throughout the investigative process?
With research showing that almost 1% of police officers are involved in misconduct in a given year, it is not surprising that the public’s trust in their own protectors is low.
Solution:
A public database of police reports monitored and maintained by a moderator group of anonymous and randomized citizens.
- Once a police report is filed, it remains part of an immutable record unless it is removed by the majority consent of the moderator citizens.
- Ability to query the national database to run background checks and improve cross-department collaborations.
- Digitally native and secure process of reporting a crime and seeing the progress of the investigation.
- Provide a public dashboard of performance statistics to keep law enforcement accountable.
- Protect the identities of the moderators and randomize them using smart contracts to ensure that decisions cannot be corrupted and moderators cannot be pressured.
There are already real-world implementations of this concept: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/10/13/police-complaints-in-this-indian-district-are-going-on-the-polygon-blockchain/
Blockchains are uniquely positioned to improve the transparency and effectiveness of law enforcement; the first step is to reduce the likelihood of corruption in the police investigation process.