Various attempts have been made to strike a balance in police accountability between citizen demands for effective, external police accountability mechanisms and police preference for internal forms of accountability. Traditionally, citizen complaints about police conduct have been treated by the police as manifestations of individual officer excess, to be dealt with in an ad hoc and usually disciplinary manner. Citizen complaints against the police are therefore sources of knowledge and represent opportunities for self-correction. The widely documented failure of internal complaint mechanisms reflects a loss of public confidence in the way police have responded previously to citizen complaints and to evidence of misconduct within their ranks. A broadly conceived complaint system is important, not only in terms of public confidence in the police but also in terms of diagnosing problems in police operations that affect the effectiveness and legitimacy of police practices. 53 references