The Rampart Independent Review Panel (2000) identified a number of deviant behaviors exhibited by Los Angeles police in the Rampart area, including excessive use of force against suspects as well as innocent bystanders and stealing cash, drugs, and other goods stored evidence in evidence lockers. These particular examples of deviant behavior in the Rampart police unit resulted in part as a consequence of the empowerment of a unit called CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) (Rampart Independent Review Panel, 2000). Rampart CRASH developed a culture and a mentality indicating that the ends justified the means. Officers in the unit were allowed to resist supervision and control, routinely made up their own rules, were left with little or no oversight, and often blatantly and illegally ignored Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) procedures and policies. These violations, coupled with activities such as framing defendants, planting evidence, and even robbing a bank were the end result of a failed supervisory system which allowed a putatively elite unit to behave as however it wished to behave.
Bracey (2008) stated that the continual growth of police agencies has created the need to form specialized units and the supervisors of these units control information that is not accessible to the rest of the police department, giving out such information on a need to know basis. In this way, specialized units experience more autonomy in their everyday operations and while they may develop an expertise for the activities in which they are involved, Bracey (2008) contends that with little oversight or the inability of the organization to oversee the unit's activities, deviant behavior emerges all too easily. In the case of the Rampart CRASH unit, supervisors outside of the unit maintained a hands-off attitude as long as the unit was meeting its goals and until multiple citizen complaints were lodged against CRASH officers...