Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

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Department, and included in the SFPD’s pro- posed budget. . . . It is asking a lot of Police Chief Fred Lau and his planners to cut their own money requests for the benefit of civilians often derided by cops on the beat as second-guessers.9 Furthermore, if the oversight process fails, citizens and public officials can blame the department for not provid- ing it with enough money. Elected and appointed officials, not just police and sheriff’s departments, also may keep funding levels unrealis- tically low. • Every year some members of the Minneapolis City Council want to abolish the Civilian Police Review Authority because it is expensive. In the 1996 budget process, some council members argued that CRA was a waste of $400,000 because the police department’s IA unit should be investigating misconduct.10 • Although San Francisco residents voted in 1995 to require one Office of Citizen Complaints investigator for every 150 officers, the Board of Supervisors did not immediately allocate the money to hire additional investigators and supervisors to moni- tor them.11 During several months in 1997, staff attrition reduced the num- ber of investigators well below the charter requirement; at many points, there were only 8 investigators (com- pared with 19 in 1998). According to Mary Dunlap, OCC’s director, “It was a battle [to get the money].” Dunlap met and corresponded with supervisors and mayor’s aides, and she testified extensively to the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors during budget hearings. The OCC staff attorney organized a letter writing campaign to the mayor and supervisors from about a dozen individuals and community groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. C ITIZEN R EVIEW OF P OLICE: APPROACHES AND I MPLEMENTATION 135 The importance of adequate funding Without adequate funding, the oversight process may be just a political statement without any substance— “See what we’re doing to hold the police accountable.” According to Samuel Walker, an oversight researcher, when boards lack effective investiga- tive powers, necessary funds, and expertise, “We should really think of that as consumer fraud—it is promis- ing an independent review of com- plaints and not delivering. And that’s really fraud.”7 As a result, the Flint city charter stipulates that the ombudsman “shall be granted a budget adequate to allow such a staff as is reasonable and proper for the performance of the duties of said office.” Similarly, San Francisco’s voters passed an initiative that requires the city to fund one Office of Citizen Complaints investigator for every 150 police officers. Funding an oversight system with money from the police or sheriff’s department’s budget, as is done in St. Paul and San Francisco,8 may hamper efforts to provide ade- quate funding for two reasons: 1. The more money chiefs allocate to citizen oversight, the less they have for other impor- tant functions. In competing with these other functions, oversight may come out the loser. 2. Departments that have an adversar- ial relationship with the oversight body naturally will be reluctant to provide any more money for it than they have to. A 1997 editorial, “The Starving Watchdog,” in the San Francisco Examiner suggested: [T]he [county/city] supervisors should ask why appropriations for the watchdog agency [i.e., Office of Citizen Complaints] must be approved by the object of its investigations, the Police When boards lack effective investigative powers, neces- sary funds, and expertise, “We should really think of that as consumer fraud—it is promising an independent review of complaints and not delivering.” To avoid funding cuts, some oversight staff may be tempted to accept cases for investigation or review cases that do not merit intake.