Early warning is better than no warning?
The New York Times published an update on a developing story involving a New York Police Department officer who was stopped by police while driving a car that just earlier, had been involved in the shooting of another officer. Now, Officer Jacqueline Melendez Rivera faces charges of aiding her husband who faces charges of attempted murder.
Crisis of family and badge
(excerpt)
Officer Rivera said she had not seen her husband since his arrest, and that she would not know what to say to him even if she did.
“Me loving him does not condone what he did, bringing me down in this mess,” she said, her voice cracking. “Everybody’s affected. Not just him. Officer Suarez and his family. My family. My kids. The job that I worked at for 13 years. Everybody’s in pain.”
Rivera had been the subject of several complaints involving inappropriate behavior involving minors but the complaints had not been sustained. So if there was trouble in her background, like is the case of many law enforcement agencies, her employers either didn't see it or chose not to see it. Was she another example of why it's important for police departments to not only have "early warning systems" in place but to utilize those that actually work?
After all, Inglewood Police Department officer Jeremy Morse had at least 12 reported incidents of excessive force allegations during the three-year period leading up to the incident where he was caught on a camcorder punching teenager Donovan Jackson. After that incident, the department was to have put in place an early warning system, but has it?
In 2003, four civil rights law suits were filed against the city of Inglewood for failure to flag problem officers who had prior complaints filed against them, according to this newsletter article published by the Police Assessment Research Center. Two officers named in the law suits were Morse and Bijan Darvish who had also faced criminal charges in relation to the Jackson incident. According to the law suits, those two officers faced at least 10 complaints together or separately over a 30 month period but only one of of them had been sustained. So it appears that at least for Morse and Darvish, the community that they both policed in had a somewhat different perspective on their behavior over a period of time than their employers did.
But does Inglewood's police department have an early warning system? That's a good question in the light of the fact that just recently, about a dozen officers were implicated in a sexual misconduct scandal during a federal investigation into a money laundering and prostitution ring.
The Los Angeles Police Department which is serving its sixth year of a five-year consent decree imposed by the federal government is still hung up on how it's going to implement a computerized form of an early warning system that flags officers based on a list of criteria that addresses both good and bad behavior. At the rate this department is going, expect to ring in a new decade and still see the department dragging its old-guard feet on this one.
The early warning system is built on the belief that 80% of the misconduct in a department is committed by 20% of its officers or less or it tackles the problem from more of a "bad apple" approach rather than a systemic one. Or it is an attempt by law enforcement agencies to prove that it's not a systemic one by tackling it? At any rate by 1999, nearly 40% of law enforcement agencies serving cities larger than 50,000 had one in place, according to the Justice Department.
In San Francisco, the news wasn't so good for that department's early warning system, according to a 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Early warning system outdated, ignored
An investigation conducted by the newspaper discovered that the early warning system used by the San Francisco Police Department since 1985 was out of date and routinely ignored by the department's supervisors.
The study's findings
(excerpt, article)
-- The department's system for monitoring the use of force relies on thousands of paper records filed at headquarters and at stations across the city, making it difficult to review an officer's record or analyze trends. Other large departments -- including Miami-Dade, Pittsburgh and Phoenix -- use computer-based systems.
-- Officers are required to report when they use force, but not all do. The Chronicle found significant incidents when force was used and not logged, including cases where the city paid thousands of dollars to settle lawsuits.
-- The department acknowledges that repeated use of force is a warning sign and keeps a watch list of officers who report using force three or more times in a quarter. But dozens of officers appear again and again on that list.
-- There is a separate system for keeping track of officers who get frequent citizen complaints, but it recently lapsed for more than a year without anyone asking about it.
-- The system's weaknesses have been the subject of highly critical reports from outside the department, but city elected officials have failed to successfully press for changes in the way the department deals with problem officers.
The newspaper had its own database of officers who had registered a lot of force incidents, with one having received 58 in nine years, another, 28. The officer with 58 incidents had been flagged by the department's early warning system nine times.
However, very little research had been done on whether these warning systems work. But one thing for sure is that if the department and city or county only gives them lip service then they are pretty much finished before they've even begun.
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services attempted to tackle this complex issue and financed a study.
Early warning systems: Responding to the problem officer
This study surveyed 832 city and county law enforcement agencies and examined different early warning systems used by many of these agencies.
Some of the findings of the study addressed the type of officer who was flagged by an early warning system, in that male officers were overrepresented, female officers, underrepresented and there was not much difference by race and ethnicity.
The study did note that there was a slight tendency for officers in the early warning system to be promoted to higher positions than those who were not. Those conducting the study did advise that further research be done to determine whether the department was inadvertently or otherwise rewarding officers for exhibiting the same behaviors they were also flagging them for in determining whether to monitor them under the early warning system.
The study did conclude that the early warning systems did reduce citizen complaints against those police officers as well as other behaviors that had caused them to be flagged.
It would be interesting to see how Riverside Police Department's early warning system would fare under a similar study. Riverside was eligible to participate in the study, but was still developing its own system at the time the study was being conducted. It took quite a while for that process to work its way through the department and then through LEPAC where it was also reviewed. It was also mandated under the city's stipulated judgement with the state.
The problem with the early warning system for the average city resident is that it is a process that is entirely internal and thus insulated from public scrutiny, even in statistical form given how City Attorney Gregory Priamos prohibits the release of even statistical information even when it is allowed under state law. So most people in the community tend to look at it with a skeptical eye, because even after the five-year stipulated judgement imposed by former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there still is not much trust between community members and the department's most insulated processes.
Communities have always had their own informal "early warning systems" long before it became standard police practice in the larger agencies to create them. Long before the implementation of these systems became part and parcel of federal and state consent decrees. After all, it was the Mayor's Use of Force task force which came up with a recommendation in its final report to create such a system which was watered down a bit during its evolution but was ultimately implemented in some form.
It's probably a good bet that by the time a department gets around to flagging an officer in the early warning system that the community has known this officer may have been a good candidate for years. It's probably an even better bet that the officer's colleagues in the department knew even longer than that, but what the community often doesn't know is whether or not these same officers alert their supervisors of these problems, try to deal with the officer themselves or just ignore them. And if there are problems with an officer, just ignoring them is not doing that officer any kindness. In fact, it is making their situation worse.
So an early warning system done by computer may be a way to address or circumvent the reality that often times, what one officer may see in another, or a community may see in an officer in its midst is not visible to those operating inside a department and making the decisions regarding whether an officer will be promoted, where he or she will be assigned and even about the disciplining of an officer. How does a system like this which tracks potentially problems not visible to the human eye impact the actions that may need to be taken at the point in an officer's career when addressing problems may make the most difference?
A computer system which is impartial and immune to police culture keeps track of and monitors what human beings are unable or perhaps unwilling to see with their eyes. And although a computer may be immune to the culture which surrounds it, those who enter data into it probably are not. But what is done with the information delivered by that computer and how is it used to determine whether or not there is a problem or a trend indicating a problem? What is the difference between a series of incidents flagged by a computer and a problemic pattern of behavior or trend? It would seem that one of the most difficult problems with learning how to implement a new early warning system would be in the ability of supervisors to identify certain trends in their officers from analyzing computer data.
What if by the time an officer starts getting a rash of complaints, it's become much more difficult to address any problems?
These are some of the many questions people have about these systems and their effectiveness.
Because what if by the time a department's computer finally tracks and flags a problem which the department does not have the ability or the time to see, it's too late to intervene in the situation?
University of Nebraska, Omaha Criminal Justice professor Samuel Walker and Geoffrey P. Alpert conducted the above study. It is also available here.
An interesting story about Alpert, who specializes in use of force issues, is that when he was invited to speak in Riverside, he politely declined. He explained that he was on his way to China to give a lecture on police practices there and would thus be unavailable. He did add that he believed it would be far less difficult to lecture on the police practices used by the United states to individuals speaking a different language and living in a communist country than it would be to provide the same lecture in Riverside, California.
Ouch.
To film or not to film is the question asked in the New York Times Blog Talk section when a federal judge ordered the New York City Police Department to stop routinely filming gatherings of people including those at demonstrations. A ruling issued by the judge on a case that was 35 years old stated that police officers may only film at large gatherings if there is a reasonable suspicion that unlawful activity might occur.
Crisis of family and badge
(excerpt)
Officer Rivera said she had not seen her husband since his arrest, and that she would not know what to say to him even if she did.
“Me loving him does not condone what he did, bringing me down in this mess,” she said, her voice cracking. “Everybody’s affected. Not just him. Officer Suarez and his family. My family. My kids. The job that I worked at for 13 years. Everybody’s in pain.”
Rivera had been the subject of several complaints involving inappropriate behavior involving minors but the complaints had not been sustained. So if there was trouble in her background, like is the case of many law enforcement agencies, her employers either didn't see it or chose not to see it. Was she another example of why it's important for police departments to not only have "early warning systems" in place but to utilize those that actually work?
After all, Inglewood Police Department officer Jeremy Morse had at least 12 reported incidents of excessive force allegations during the three-year period leading up to the incident where he was caught on a camcorder punching teenager Donovan Jackson. After that incident, the department was to have put in place an early warning system, but has it?
In 2003, four civil rights law suits were filed against the city of Inglewood for failure to flag problem officers who had prior complaints filed against them, according to this newsletter article published by the Police Assessment Research Center. Two officers named in the law suits were Morse and Bijan Darvish who had also faced criminal charges in relation to the Jackson incident. According to the law suits, those two officers faced at least 10 complaints together or separately over a 30 month period but only one of of them had been sustained. So it appears that at least for Morse and Darvish, the community that they both policed in had a somewhat different perspective on their behavior over a period of time than their employers did.
But does Inglewood's police department have an early warning system? That's a good question in the light of the fact that just recently, about a dozen officers were implicated in a sexual misconduct scandal during a federal investigation into a money laundering and prostitution ring.
The Los Angeles Police Department which is serving its sixth year of a five-year consent decree imposed by the federal government is still hung up on how it's going to implement a computerized form of an early warning system that flags officers based on a list of criteria that addresses both good and bad behavior. At the rate this department is going, expect to ring in a new decade and still see the department dragging its old-guard feet on this one.
The early warning system is built on the belief that 80% of the misconduct in a department is committed by 20% of its officers or less or it tackles the problem from more of a "bad apple" approach rather than a systemic one. Or it is an attempt by law enforcement agencies to prove that it's not a systemic one by tackling it? At any rate by 1999, nearly 40% of law enforcement agencies serving cities larger than 50,000 had one in place, according to the Justice Department.
In San Francisco, the news wasn't so good for that department's early warning system, according to a 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Early warning system outdated, ignored
An investigation conducted by the newspaper discovered that the early warning system used by the San Francisco Police Department since 1985 was out of date and routinely ignored by the department's supervisors.
The study's findings
(excerpt, article)
-- The department's system for monitoring the use of force relies on thousands of paper records filed at headquarters and at stations across the city, making it difficult to review an officer's record or analyze trends. Other large departments -- including Miami-Dade, Pittsburgh and Phoenix -- use computer-based systems.
-- Officers are required to report when they use force, but not all do. The Chronicle found significant incidents when force was used and not logged, including cases where the city paid thousands of dollars to settle lawsuits.
-- The department acknowledges that repeated use of force is a warning sign and keeps a watch list of officers who report using force three or more times in a quarter. But dozens of officers appear again and again on that list.
-- There is a separate system for keeping track of officers who get frequent citizen complaints, but it recently lapsed for more than a year without anyone asking about it.
-- The system's weaknesses have been the subject of highly critical reports from outside the department, but city elected officials have failed to successfully press for changes in the way the department deals with problem officers.
The newspaper had its own database of officers who had registered a lot of force incidents, with one having received 58 in nine years, another, 28. The officer with 58 incidents had been flagged by the department's early warning system nine times.
However, very little research had been done on whether these warning systems work. But one thing for sure is that if the department and city or county only gives them lip service then they are pretty much finished before they've even begun.
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services attempted to tackle this complex issue and financed a study.
Early warning systems: Responding to the problem officer
This study surveyed 832 city and county law enforcement agencies and examined different early warning systems used by many of these agencies.
Some of the findings of the study addressed the type of officer who was flagged by an early warning system, in that male officers were overrepresented, female officers, underrepresented and there was not much difference by race and ethnicity.
The study did note that there was a slight tendency for officers in the early warning system to be promoted to higher positions than those who were not. Those conducting the study did advise that further research be done to determine whether the department was inadvertently or otherwise rewarding officers for exhibiting the same behaviors they were also flagging them for in determining whether to monitor them under the early warning system.
The study did conclude that the early warning systems did reduce citizen complaints against those police officers as well as other behaviors that had caused them to be flagged.
It would be interesting to see how Riverside Police Department's early warning system would fare under a similar study. Riverside was eligible to participate in the study, but was still developing its own system at the time the study was being conducted. It took quite a while for that process to work its way through the department and then through LEPAC where it was also reviewed. It was also mandated under the city's stipulated judgement with the state.
The problem with the early warning system for the average city resident is that it is a process that is entirely internal and thus insulated from public scrutiny, even in statistical form given how City Attorney Gregory Priamos prohibits the release of even statistical information even when it is allowed under state law. So most people in the community tend to look at it with a skeptical eye, because even after the five-year stipulated judgement imposed by former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there still is not much trust between community members and the department's most insulated processes.
Communities have always had their own informal "early warning systems" long before it became standard police practice in the larger agencies to create them. Long before the implementation of these systems became part and parcel of federal and state consent decrees. After all, it was the Mayor's Use of Force task force which came up with a recommendation in its final report to create such a system which was watered down a bit during its evolution but was ultimately implemented in some form.
It's probably a good bet that by the time a department gets around to flagging an officer in the early warning system that the community has known this officer may have been a good candidate for years. It's probably an even better bet that the officer's colleagues in the department knew even longer than that, but what the community often doesn't know is whether or not these same officers alert their supervisors of these problems, try to deal with the officer themselves or just ignore them. And if there are problems with an officer, just ignoring them is not doing that officer any kindness. In fact, it is making their situation worse.
So an early warning system done by computer may be a way to address or circumvent the reality that often times, what one officer may see in another, or a community may see in an officer in its midst is not visible to those operating inside a department and making the decisions regarding whether an officer will be promoted, where he or she will be assigned and even about the disciplining of an officer. How does a system like this which tracks potentially problems not visible to the human eye impact the actions that may need to be taken at the point in an officer's career when addressing problems may make the most difference?
A computer system which is impartial and immune to police culture keeps track of and monitors what human beings are unable or perhaps unwilling to see with their eyes. And although a computer may be immune to the culture which surrounds it, those who enter data into it probably are not. But what is done with the information delivered by that computer and how is it used to determine whether or not there is a problem or a trend indicating a problem? What is the difference between a series of incidents flagged by a computer and a problemic pattern of behavior or trend? It would seem that one of the most difficult problems with learning how to implement a new early warning system would be in the ability of supervisors to identify certain trends in their officers from analyzing computer data.
What if by the time an officer starts getting a rash of complaints, it's become much more difficult to address any problems?
These are some of the many questions people have about these systems and their effectiveness.
Because what if by the time a department's computer finally tracks and flags a problem which the department does not have the ability or the time to see, it's too late to intervene in the situation?
University of Nebraska, Omaha Criminal Justice professor Samuel Walker and Geoffrey P. Alpert conducted the above study. It is also available here.
An interesting story about Alpert, who specializes in use of force issues, is that when he was invited to speak in Riverside, he politely declined. He explained that he was on his way to China to give a lecture on police practices there and would thus be unavailable. He did add that he believed it would be far less difficult to lecture on the police practices used by the United states to individuals speaking a different language and living in a communist country than it would be to provide the same lecture in Riverside, California.
Ouch.
To film or not to film is the question asked in the New York Times Blog Talk section when a federal judge ordered the New York City Police Department to stop routinely filming gatherings of people including those at demonstrations. A ruling issued by the judge on a case that was 35 years old stated that police officers may only film at large gatherings if there is a reasonable suspicion that unlawful activity might occur.
Labels: consent decrees and other adventures, Making the grade
posted by Five Before Midnight | 8:36 AM
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