Item A: Police Oversight System - Roles and Expectations

Home Browse Search

Police Complaint System and Civilian Oversight Recommendations Preliminary Investigation and Complaint Classification Internal affairs statistics over the past several years show that the office responds to over 300 citizen contacts a year. These contacts range from simple requests for information to allegations of criminal misconduct against police officers.As such, the department has used two broad categories of complaints to distinguish cases that require a full investigation from other contacts: allegations and inquiries. Complaint categorization has both procedural and public perception implications. Procedurally, how a complaint is classified affects the level and type of investigation conducted, disposition outcomes, timeline for completion, and record retention requirements. In terms of public perception, the department’s internal categorization process has been criticized as being biased, inconsistent and dismissive of valid concerns. Alternately, some police employees have voiced frustration that the department’s intake system creates an open door policy for frivolous complaints that redirects sergeants’ attention from supervising employees to conducting pointless investigations. Clearly, this was an area ripe for change. The Police Commission believes that all complaintsshould be treated with due diligence, but has found that to make the most efficient use of resources, facilitate a timely response to complainants, and offer multiple options for complaint resolution, a categorization system is necessary. To ensure that the basis for classification decisions is independent, consistent and transparent, the commission recommends that the authority for categorizing complaints rest with the auditor’s office. A basic process description follows, but more formalized procedures should be established to provide clear, standardized practices. The auditor’s office will be responsible for conducting a preliminary investigation of all complaints to determine how the issue is best handled. Vesting the authority to classify complaints with the auditor’s office is intended to reassure the community that these decisions will be informed, professional judgments that consider how to achieve the best resolution to an issue, and are not formed on the perceived credibility of the complainant. For consistency, the auditor should classify both internally generated and community-based complaints. To enable the auditor to conduct a preliminary investigation into the involved incident requires that the auditor have access to law enforcement databases. The auditor will classify complaints into two categories: service complaints and allegations of misconduct. A service complaint will include concerns about police officer performance or demeanor, customer service and/or level of police service complaints, or complaints where the person is dissatisfied with current procedures or in disagreement with established police policies. The complainant does not allege behavior that would constitute a policy violation. Service complaints, in large part, will replace the category of complaints currentlytreated as “inquiries.” The formal definition of a service complaint will need to be developed and incorporated into police department policy. An allegation of misconduct will be those complaints that, if true, would be a violation of department policy, a violation of a person’s civil rights, or a criminal offense. Both service complaints and allegations of misconduct will be further categorized by type for statistical tracking purposes and to allow trends analysis on the nature of the complaints received. 11