This paper has two objectives. The first is to offer a retrospective on how the city of Philadelphia attempted to make their police department accountable to the community. Unfortunately, the city has been unable to establish an approach that assures a reasonable amount of accountability from its police department. In light of that failure, the second objective is to assess the recommendations on departmental accountability that were put forth by the task force. Criticism of the report is leveled at the efforts to conceptualize the problem and implement change. (Author abstract)