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in an attempt to intimidate the officers into less aggres-
<br />sive enforcement. Jurisdictions also must decide whether
<br />unsustained complaints will be included in the tally.
<br />While officers may object to this practice, one lieutenant
<br />reported that an officer who has accumulated 10 unsus-
<br />tained cases may indeed be getting into trouble, and, at a
<br />minimum, his or her supervisors need to be told to inves-
<br />tigate whether there is a problem that requires corrective
<br />action before it escalates.
<br />Police Accountability: Establishing an Early Warning
<br />System involves a national evaluation of early warning
<br />systems that discusses their benefits and limitations in
<br />detail.8
<br />* * *
<br />The success with which oversight systems are able to
<br />improve police and sheriff’s departments’ policies and
<br />procedures, conduct mediation, and assist with an early
<br />warning system depends crucially on the number, skills,
<br />impartiality, and dedication of their staff. The following
<br />chapter addresses the issues involved in staffing an over-
<br />sight system.
<br />Notes
<br />1. Luna, Eileen, and Samuel Walker, “A Report on the
<br />Oversight Mechanisms of the Albuquerque Police
<br />Department,” prepared for the Albuquerque City Council,
<br />1997: 128–129.
<br />2. San Francisco’s Office of Community Complaints
<br />(OCC) also drafted a policy for crowd control in
<br />response to citizen complaints that officers were handling
<br />demonstrations by yelling “disperse” and then scattering
<br />the demonstrators by using their batons. The department
<br />adopted OCC’s recommended policy that officers ensure
<br />that demonstrators have enough time to disperse and that
<br />there are enough avenues to leave the scene. Oversight
<br />bodies in both San Francisco and Berkeley may have
<br />been especially active in addressing their police depart-
<br />ments’ behavior in crowd control situations because of
<br />the unusual number of demonstrations the two cities
<br />experience.
<br />Both cities also were working with the police to improve
<br />officers’ handling of mentally ill persons. Officials in
<br />Albuquerque also are concerned about this problem.
<br />The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of
<br />the U.S. Department of Justice, has published an Issues
<br />and Practices report entitled Police Response to Special
<br />Populations: Handling the Mentally Ill, Public Inebriate,
<br />and the Homeless (Finn, P.E., and M. Sullivan,
<br />Washington, D.C., 1987, NCJ 107273) that describes
<br />efforts in 10 jurisdictions to enhance police and sheriff’s
<br />departments’ efforts to handle the mentally ill misde-
<br />meanor offender.
<br />3. Vera Institute of Justice,Processing Complaints
<br />against Police in New York City: The Complainant’s
<br />Perspective,New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 1989.
<br />4. Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police
<br />Department,Report of the Independent Commission on
<br />the Los Angeles Police Department,Los Angeles: City of
<br />Los Angeles, 1991.
<br />5. “Kansas City Police Go After Their ‘Bad Boys,’”New
<br />York Times,September 10, 1991; “Wave of Abuse Claims
<br />Laid to a Few Officers,Boston Globe,October 4, 1992,
<br />cited in Walker, Samuel, “Revitalizing the New York
<br />CCRB: A Proposal for Change,” unpublished paper,
<br />Omaha: University of Nebraska, Department of Criminal
<br />Justice, September 1997: 5.
<br />6. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,Who Is Guarding
<br />the Guardians? A Report on Police Practices,
<br />Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
<br />1981.
<br />7. Luna and Walker, “A Report on the Oversight
<br />Mechanisms of the Albuquerque Police Depart-
<br />ment,” 137.
<br />8. Walker, Samuel, and Geoffrey P. Alpert,Police
<br />Accountability: Establishing an Early Warning System,
<br />IQ Service Report, vol. 32, no. 8, Washington, D.C.:
<br />International City/County Management Association,
<br />2000.
<br />C HAPTER 3: OTHER O VERSIGHT R ESPONSIBILITIES
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