Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

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C ITIZEN R EVIEW OF P OLICE: APPROACHES AND I MPLEMENTATION 81 results to target officers with unusually high numbers of complaints for supervisory counseling or retraining. The rationale for EWS was provided by a report that found a relatively small number of Los Angeles police officers were responsible for a disproportionate number of use- of-force reports and citizen complaints: Of about 1,800 officers against whom an allegation had been filed, 44 had 6 or more complaints against them.4 Other studies have found that between 5 and 10 percent of a depart- ment’s officers engage repeatedly in problem behavior.5 As a result, in 1981 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that police and sheriff’s departments devel- op early warning systems to identify problem officers.6 Typically, EWS is designed to be informal, nonpunitive, and separate from the normal disciplinary process. Usually, it involves counseling or retraining by supervisory officers.7 Oversight involvement in EWS Citizen oversight programs can become involved with an EWS in at least four ways: • Recommend that the police or sher- iff’s department adopt an EWS. • Collaborate with the department in implementing an EWS. • Operate EWS for the department. • Audit the department’s EWS system. After holding a hearing for a second complaint against a deputy for two separate shooting incidents, members of the Orange County Citizen Review Board learned that the deputy had a history of 18 disciplinary incidents. By making the lack of a tracking system public during its normal open hearing process and by stressing that the department was in jeopardy of lawsuits and negative media publicity by failing to discipline errant officers effectively, the board reinforced and sped up the depart- ment’s existing plans to develop an early warning system. As of late 1998, the EWS software had been developed and was in place, and the sheriff’s office was working on a policy to implement it. Every 3 months, Minneapolis’ Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA) sends internal affairs the names of officers who have accumulated two or more complaints within the previous 12-month period. A computer pro- gram generates the information. Internal affairs examines its own list of officers with multiple complaints and generates a report for commanders, the deputy chiefs, and the chief that identifies officers who have had two misconduct complaints of the same nature or three com- plaints of any nature combining both IA and CRA cases during the previous 12-month period. The report indi- cates what the complaints allege and whether they involve officers on duty or off duty. On average, about 12 officers per quarter have their names in the report. According to Lt. Dorothy Veldey-Jones, the IA commander: Oftentimes a name will appear for one quarter and then never again. Occasionally, names appear for two quarters, but by the third quarter they drop off the list. Then, howev- er, there are a few names that con- sistently appear on the list; they may drop off for short periods of time, but they seem to reappear frequently. The department is evaluating the system to determine what the best courses of remedial action would be given the information the report provides. The Portland auditor examined the Portland Police Bureau’s EWS system and ensured it was identifying the individuals who met the bureau’s criteria for inclu- sion on the list of potential problem officers. Benefits and drawbacks of EWS An early warning system can help police and sheriff’s departments identify officers who may be exhibiting a pattern of misconduct that suggests the need for interven- tion before the officers commit more serious misconduct. However, departments must determine carefully how many complaints, what type of complaints, and the peri- od of time that will trigger a specified supervisory action. For example, officers on drug details may have numerous complaints filed against them by drug dealers’ attorneys An early warning system can help police and sheriff’s departments identify officers who may be exhibiting a pattern of misconduct that suggests the need for intervention before the officers commit more serious misconduct.