Re: The City of New York: Commission to Investigate Allegati
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:27 am
PART 2 OF 2
II. COMMAND ACCOUNTABILITY
Enforcement of Command Accountability
One of the most pervasive managerial failures the Commission has observed in the Department over recent years is its failure to maintain the system of command accountability. The cornerstone of the Department's anti-corruption strategy, command accountability requires a comprehensive commitment to successful corruption control throughout the Department, especially from field commanders. Ideally, the entire Department should be infused with values that discourage corruption. But at the very least, field commanders should be held responsible for the state of corruption within their commands. If corruption control fails, field commanders, as well as internal investigators, should answer for it. If it succeeds, they should be commended.
Successful command accountability is particularly important because it can, as it has in the past, change the organizational culture of the Department. Command accountability forces corruption control to be the responsibility of all the Department's managers and pushes anti-corruption priorities out into the field. Under this principle, protecting the integrity of police officers is vested not just in Internal Affairs but in every stationhouse in the City.
Without the principle of accountability becoming standard operating procedure throughout the Department, no system of corruption control, no matter how well devised and equipped, is likely to succeed. When the public sees groups of police officers arrested for crimes they committed while on duty and in uniform, it demands an answer to the question of how such corruption could possibly have occurred without police supervisors detecting it and making every effort to stop it. The Department must provide an answer to that question if it ever hopes to restore the public's confidence in its integrity and good faith. It also owes that answer to its own rank and file who feel they are the only targets in corruption probes, while the bosses are never called to account.
Some have argued that with the elimination of the FIAUs -- which, in theory, served as the investigative tool for field commanders to uncover corruption -- field commanders cannot fairly be held accountable for corruption on their watch.
We do not agree. As discussed in Chapter Four, the FIAUs were rarely used as a management tool by borough or precinct commanders to effectively fight corruption -- nor were they used by the Department as a basis for enforcing command accountability. We believe that command accountability need not depend solely on commanders investigating corruption through field units. Commanders can and should be held accountable for their efforts in preventing and detecting corruption, reporting it to IAD, and assisting with any ensuing investigation. They must make it clear to their subordinates that they will not tolerate corruption or the code of silence in their commands; that they will reward those who come forward to report corruption, and, when appropriate, sanction those who do not; they must insure that supervisors vigorously pursue and report their suspicions about corruption; and in particular they must use their Integrity Control Officers to monitor and identify corruption problems in the precinct, including through such means as monitoring the precinct radio, spot checking arrest scenes and identifying other corruption hazards and problem officers. When they want their suspicions pursued, commanders still have an investigative arm: the Internal Affairs Bureau. In sum, we believe the basis for fair and firm enforcement of command accountability exists -- even without the FIAUs -- if the recommendations that follow are carried out.
Enforcement of command accountability, however, is not easy. It does not simply mean that a superior officer's head must roll for every instance of corruption -- as the press and others often demand. After all, disclosure of corruption can be evidence of good, as well as poor, performance in fighting corruption. A strict liability standard -- imposing sanctions whenever corruption is uncovered -- is not only unfair but it creates incentives to conceal or transfer corruption rather than uproot it. On the other hand, subjective, conclusory decisions on liability made by commanders or chiefs is also unfair. The Department must make commanders understand that they will be judged fairly and regularly for their anti-corruption attitudes; that they will be rewarded or penalized on the basis of their actual performance in uncovering corruption -- not on the fact that corruption exists. But making such determinations requires time and effort. It requires factual inquiries and investigations, not just conclusory pronouncements on culpability or diligence. It requires an investigation into what commanders knew or should have known and the measures they took or failed to take to prevent or uncover corruption in their command. Without making such genuine determinations, command accountability will continue to be mere rhetoric rather than actual practice.
A major failure of the Department's past approach to command accountability has been that no mechanism was ever put into place to enforce it. No person or unit was ever responsible for determining when corruption disclosures reflected supervisory neglect or vigilance. Most people presume the Police Commissioner enforces command accountability, but no Commissioner ever instituted a mechanism to monitor commanders' performance and, when necessary, determine culpability. As a result, such determinations were rarely made.
Command accountability also requires that commanders understand that they will be judged regularly, not only during scandals, for their anti-corruption performance. A tool that was initially intended to help keep commanders accountable was the annual Corruption Assessment Report. Since the 1970s, precinct commanders and heads of police units have been required to report the state of corruption and corruption hazards within their commands by submitting this Report to the Police Commissioner. The Commission's inquiries showed that, over the last decade, what began as a possibly useful integrity control and command accountability tool has become useless boilerplate. Commanding officers file essentially the same report year after year with only superficial changes.
The Department should reform this potentially useful tool. It should require all commanding officers, including borough, precinct and unit commanders to participate in an annual Corruption Assessment Review; a face-to-face briefing session with Internal Affairs commanders to apprise Internal Affairs of the following information: (i) corruption hazards within their commands; (ii) intelligence information about corruption-prone officers; (iii) the level of supervision within the command; (iv) efforts to prevent corruption; (v) management problems that impede corruption control; and, (vi) any need for additional resources or assistance from IAB to deter or uncover corruption. We recommend that the commanding officer be required to memorialize the substance of the Corruption Assessment Review in a brief report that should be submitted to the First Deputy Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs.
We expect such personal briefing sessions will serve a number of important purposes. First, they will insure regular monitoring and evaluation of commanders' anti-corruption performance. Second, they will motivate Internal Affairs and field commanders to engage in productive relationships to control corruption and help overcome the isolation and mistrust that has long divided field commanders and Internal Affairs officers. They will help encourage commanders to view IAB as a management tool they can use to fight corruption rather than as potential trouble-makers. Third, they will compel commanders to take a more active and personal role in deterring and reporting corruption within their commands. Fourth, they will force commanding officers to give careful consideration to the corruption hazards in their commands and their plans to address them, rather than allowing them to rely on outdated and repetitive written reports. Finally, they will allow command accountability inquiries to focus not only on a commanding officer's knowledge and actions, but on the adequacy of Internal Affairs' response. In the event corruption comes to light in a command where a field commander or Internal Affairs commander failed to address the problem, they should be held equally to account for their omissions.
Commissioner Bratton has begun to make the importance of command accountability clear to police supervisors. In the wake of the 30th Precinct investigation and the Commission's findings on the collapse of command accountability, he has stated publicly that scrutiny of supervisors has been lax over the past decade and that police supervisors who turn a blind eye to corruption do so at great risk. The Commission has seen a considerable effort on the part of the Department to revitalize genuine command accountability. The challenge is to sustain and reinforce that effort over the years. To accomplish that, the Commission has concluded that the principle of command accountability must be completely reinvented. To help achieve this goal, we present the following recommendations:
• The Police Commissioner should make clear his total commitment to enforce the principle of accountability to all police commanders and supervisors.
• Establish a special Command Accountability Review Unit to conduct post-corruption disclosure investigations to identify the supervisors and commanders who knew or should have known about corruption within their commands and failed to take adequate measures to prevent and report it, as well as those who performed diligently in this area. The unit should also determine whether commanders provided appropriate assistance to internal investigators during a corruption investigation. The unit should operate under the direction of the First Deputy Commissioner and should include a representative from our recommended external independent monitor, should one be created.
• The performance of the Command Accountability Review Unit should be monitored by the independent external monitor.
• The Police Commissioner should provide for sanctions, including demotion or dismissal, for supervisors who failed in their duties, as determined by the Command Accountability Review Board.
• The Police Commissioner should publicly reward supervisors who have demonstrated their commitment to integrity, as determined by the Command Accountability Review Board, or by other means.
• The Department should factor superior corruption control performance in promotion and assignment practices.
• The Police Commissioner should require commanders to participate in yearly Corruption Assessment Reviews with Internal Affairs commanders which insures that commanders will be regularly monitored and assisted with their anti-corruption performance.
• Train police supervisors and commanders in the indications and conditions suggesting corruption is taking place so that they make accurate assessments of the corruption hazards in their commands.
• Internal Affairs should keep precinct commanders informed of the existence and developments of corruption investigations within their commands and require them to assist in investigations.
• The Command Accountability Review Unit should also review and determine the adequacy of Internal Affairs' response to information on corruption received from supervisors and commanders, as well as the adequacy of its assistance to supervisors and commanders. Internal Affairs commanders should be held accountable for poor performance in this area or rewarded for outstanding performance.
Supervision
In the course of the Commission's investigations into precincts where corruption existed, we found sparse and ineffectual supervision at every turn. The failure of effective supervision has been a major contributing factor not only to corruption but to the climate of tolerance that makes it possible. As we stated in our Interim Report, many supervisors of all levels acted as if it was better not to know about, much less, report corruption. If the Department has any hope of minimizing corruption in future years, that attitude must change. The Commission recognizes that the demands of police work inevitably make close supervision a very difficult goal. But effective corruption control must begin with strong supervision.
While the Commission found, in most instances, no hard evidence that most supervisors were directly engaged in corrupt acts, in precincts such as the 9th, 30th, 46th, 73rd and 75th, and where groups of police officers engaged in outright criminal activity, it is hard to believe that supervisors were ignorant of the corruption of their subordinates. In fact, a number of supervisors knew or should have known about corruption within their commands and did nothing to stop it.
Of all supervisory positions, sergeants, as first-line field supervisors, were in the best position to know about corruption. Unfortunately, in too many cases explored by the Commission, sergeants failed to serve as a deterrent to corruption. There are a number of reasons for this, not all of which reflect poorly on the abilities or commitment of individual sergeants and other supervisors. These reasons, plus additional findings on supervision failures were discussed in detail in Chapter Four. A brief summary of these deficiencies follows.
To begin, sergeants have suffered a dramatic dilution of authority in recent years. They are increasingly young, inexperienced, and often feel more loyal to their subordinates than to the Department's managers. They are eligible to take the sergeants' examination immediately after their term as a probationary officer expires, which means after only eighteen months' experience as a police officer. Establishing their credibility and authority is thus often difficult.
There is also a critical shortage of sergeants in many precincts within the Department causing an unmanageable span of supervision, or ratio of supervisors to patrol officers. While police experts have recommended a supervision ratio of one sergeant to ten officers, we found in some precincts, sergeants were responsible for supervising more than thirty officers in any given tour. It was not uncommon, furthermore, for sergeants to be assigned supervision of patrol officers in two separate precincts in the same tour. Under such conditions, it is practically impossible for sergeants to know what their subordinates are doing at any given time -- which is no secret to officers on the streets. Even in precincts with manageable numbers of subordinates to supervise, sergeants must perform a host of administrative duties that require them to devote more time to paperwork than to active field supervision.
In many high-crime precincts, sergeants do no supervising at all. Besides their supervisory and administrative duties, sergeants assigned to such precincts routinely handle calls for service during busy periods, which are the responsibility of patrol officers -- which further undermines their authority.
Department commanders often assigned sergeants and other supervisors without regard to prior experience, training or the needs of the particular command. Inexperienced probationary sergeants were often assigned to busy, corruption-prone precincts where experienced and proven supervisors were most needed.
Even more troubling, many supervisors and commanders do not perceive corruption control as part of their responsibility. In past years, the Department did little to suggest otherwise. It rarely trained supervisors on corruption control or held them responsible for their performance.
The Department also did little to support the precinct Integrity Control Officer ("ICO") who is responsible for assisting precinct and unit commanders with corruption issues. ICOs spend most of their time controlling paper rather than corruption. They are also isolated from IAD and are rarely provided with information about corruption in their commands. In sum, they have become clerks rather than corruption fighters.
To reverse the problem of ineffective supervision, the Department must first make clear to all supervisors that they have a critical role in preventing and detecting corruption. That message must start with training and must be reinforced by application of the principle of personal accountability. In the past, the Department's training of supervisors was inadequate. Most sergeants and lieutenants we interviewed harshly criticized the Department's management training courses. They claimed they taught them nothing about how to manage and supervise subordinates -- and were basically a mere patrol guide refresher course that failed to realistically address the practical problems supervisors face in today's environment. Moreover, supervisors, received no training in how to detect and prevent corruption on their watch or how to identify corruption-prone officers. They received no message about the importance of carrying out their anti-corruption duties.
The Department must also train supervisors on how to effectively communicate with a diverse patrol force. Such training, especially with a growing minority contingent is vital to any diverse group. It is especially important to groups that spend hours together. Our investigation revealed that certain minority officers sometimes feel themselves to be outsiders in a basically white Department. While it is not uncommon for minorities in any large group to feel this way, various studies suggest that human interaction training can heighten morale and loyalty and lessen alienation.
In recent months, the Department has moved swiftly to correct many of the supervision problems identified by the Commission. Recently, the Department promoted approximately four hundred new sergeants and has begun to reform supervisory training by establishing a Sergeants' Academy that provides anti-corruption training and in-service leadership seminars for supervisors of all ranks.
In light of the Commission's findings on police supervision, we offer the following reform recommendations:
• Require officers to have at least three years of service experience before becoming eligible for promotion to sergeant.
• The Department should reform its supervisory staffing model to insure that appropriate numbers of experienced and proven sergeants are assigned to the most corruption-prone precincts and that supervision in such commands be maintained at an appropriate ratio of sergeants to officers.
• In precincts where sergeants are required to perform patrol duties or nonsupervisory functions, a second sergeant should be assigned exclusively to supervise officers on patrol.
• The Department should increase the number of field supervisors during midnight tours of duty in corruption-prone precincts.
• The Department should not require sergeants to supervise more than one precinct during the same tour of duty.
• The Department should examine whether certain administrative tasks of patrol sergeants and ICOs can be eliminated or curtailed to allow them to devote more time to field supervision.
• The Department should promulgate a clear policy on the duties and responsibilities of ICOs that focuses on their responsibility for precinct integrity controls. ICOs should be used to reinforce professional values, detect evidence of corruption, and ferret out wrongdoing and inefficiency.
• ICOs should receive specialized integrity control training and the resources necessary to perform an active anti-corruption role in their commands by gathering intelligence, monitoring precinct corruption hazards, monitoring the precinct radio, spot monitoring arrest scenes, communicating with Internal Affairs, and investigating allegations of misconduct.
• ICOs should be required to conduct precinct corruption-prevention audits by reviewing arrest reports, requests for overtime pay, stop and frisk reports, declinations to prosecute, copies of criminal court complaints, and other documents to determine patterns of questionable arrests and identify other indications of corruption. ICOs should advise precinct commanders where levels of supervision need to be increased.
• The Internal Affairs Bureau should establish regular, in-command liaison with ICOs and use their services in intelligence-gathering and investigations.
• The Department's recently established Sergeants' Academy should include a course of instruction that emphasizes practical management skills, establishing command authority, integrity control methods, and leadership qualities necessary to be an effective first-line supervisor. The course of instruction should be based on interactive methods of instruction and field work in the City's busy, high-crime precincts. All new sergeants should be trained in identifying indicators of corruption, brutality, and substance abuse.
• Require periodic in-service training for all supervisory ranks in corruption, brutality, and substance abuse detection and prevention. The training should include realistic, interactive instruction based on profiles of corruption-prone officers and commands.
• The Department should establish regular in-service leadership seminars for all police supervisors, including racial and cultural diversity training.
III. INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS
Internal Affairs Operations
Over the past two years, this Commission, the media, and recently, the Department itself have focused a great deal of attention on the litany of failures of the Department's internal anti-corruption apparatus. As the Commission has reported, our investigation revealed a corruption investigation system that often minimized and even concealed corruption rather than rooted it out. Oversight of Internal Affairs was virtually non-existent, intelligence-gathering efforts were negligible, corruption investigations were often deliberately limited and prematurely closed, and the appearance of integrity was more important than the reality. In short, genuine commitment to fighting corruption had virtually disappeared and Internal Affairs had abandoned its mission to remove serious corruption from the Department.
The Department has come to acknowledge the vast problems infecting Internal Affairs identified by the Commission, and the Department has begun to act. Under the leadership of Commissioners Kelly and Bratton, Internal Affairs has gone through many important changes. Internal Affairs operations have now been centralized into one Bureau headed by a civilian Deputy Commissioner, Walter Mack, an experienced and skillful former prosecutor who has done much to energize and expand the Department's internal investigations. The organizational structure of the Internal Affairs Bureau has changed a number of times as the Department seeks the best structure to support Internal Affairs' mission. A large turnover in personnel has occurred with many of the complacent and incompetent executives of Internal Affairs either having retired from the Department or been transferred from the Bureau. Some experienced and respected investigators have joined Internal Affairs and the Bureau has been allocated over two million dollars in advanced investigative equipment and a new computerized case-tracking system.
Most important, the Commission has detected a heightened commitment and assertiveness on the part of Internal Affairs investigators. While uncovering the largest police corruption case in recent history, Commission investigators worked side by side with investigators of the Internal Affairs Bureau. At every turn in the investigation, the Internal Affairs investigators worked tirelessly to uncover the full scope of corruption within that precinct and were unwaveringly committed to acquiring the necessary evidence to root it all out. We recognize that the Department acted in this manner under the light of outside scrutiny by this Commission. But the point is with such oversight it acted with skill and uncompromising zeal.
Fundamental problems, however, do remain. First, while we certainly detected an increased commitment and effectiveness on the part of Internal Affairs commanders and investigators with whom we worked, we cannot be certain that this new attitude has spread throughout the Bureau. We continue to see the need for continued emphasis on swift and efficient decision-making and the placement of operational authority in the hands of the investigators most familiar with case strategy, focus, and goals.
Second, most officers still have little trust or respect for Internal Affairs. Overwhelmingly, officers of all ranks interviewed by the Commission and the Department continue to view Internal Affairs as a group of petty, inexperienced, and incompetent investigators with no knowledge of the demands of real police work. They contemptuously describe Internal Affairs as a "white socks and no hats" operation that focuses on pestering hard-working officers with petty infractions rather than aggressively pursuing allegations of serious corruption and criminality. Officers express great concern that Internal Affairs' failure to investigate allegations fully and its tendency to close cases as "unsubstantiated" or by noting minor misconduct unfairly hurts their chances for choice assignments and promotion.
Even worse, officers remain very skeptical about Internal Affairs' handling of police informants and its ability and willingness to insure confidentiality to officers who report corruption. A great many officers believe that Internal Affairs will disclose the identity of complainants or turn the focus of an investigation toward the very officer who made the allegation. An officer willing to violate the code of silence to report corruption will hardly turn to investigators he believes to be incompetent, unsupportive, and even vindictive.
Internal Affairs must first and foremost re-establish its credibility among members of the Department if it hopes to fight corruption effectively. Only by regaining its credibility will it recruit respected investigators and proven commanders, overcome the code of silence, and help spread a climate of intolerance for corruption throughout the Department.
To do so, the Department must assure Internal Affairs sufficient personnel, resources and support to prove itself a serious and sophisticated investigations unit that focuses exclusively on serious corruption and criminality and gains a reputation for success in removing corrupt and criminal officers from the job and exonerating honest officers from baseless allegations. Internal Affairs must become an investigations unit that launches investigative initiatives based on intelligence and analysis without relying on a reactive, complaint-driven system. By its actions, Internal Affairs must make police officers understand that it will vigorously pursue officers involved in crimes and serious corruption even if their colleagues and associates remain silent. Successful self-initiated investigations will quickly convince officers that their reliance on silence as a shield for wrongdoing is gravely misplaced. In short, it is imperative that Internal Affairs earn the respect and support of the entire Department.
In light of our analysis of Internal Affairs' past failures and its urgent need to regain the confidence of the police and the public alike, the Commission offers the following recommendations for reform. We believe implementation of these reforms will go a long way in protecting the Department's system of internal investigations against future decay.
Recruitment of Qualified Investigators
• Internal Affairs must improve the quality and reputation of its investigators. The Department should offer incentives and rewards to attract the best investigators available. Until such time as Internal Affairs attracts highly qualified volunteers, the Department should continue its recent policy of allowing Internal Affairs first choice of supervisors seeking assignment to an investigative unit. Internal Affairs should continue its policy of rotating its staff to avoid stagnation and increase the number of supervisors with corruption investigation experience throughout the Department. Service in Internal Affairs should be viewed as a positive factor in the career path of a police officer.
• The Police Commissioner should make every effort to recruit as commanders of Internal Affairs officers who have a Department-wide reputation for varied experience, management and investigative skill and outstanding leadership ability.
• The Department should recognize the outstanding performance of Internal Affairs investigators with citations, commendations, and promotions as it does for officers assigned to other commands.
Intelligence-Gathering Operations
• Internal Affairs must immediately strengthen its intelligence-gathering analysis operations. All witnesses, complainants, and informants must be assured absolute confidentiality or anonymity. This is particularly crucial for police officer complainants or informants. Any Internal Affairs officer who breaches confidentiality must be sanctioned severely.
• Debriefing informants and cooperating defendants on police corruption should become a regular practice among all investigative units within the Department, such as the Detective Bureau and the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Such investigators must actively pursue information on police corruption. All such information should be promptly reported to Internal Affairs.
• Internal Affairs must recruit and operate a cadre of undercover officers in the most corruption-prone precincts and commands. Their role should be to gather information on corruption within their commands and provide the basis for integrity tests, electronic surveillance, and other pro-active investigative measures. Members of the Internal Affairs undercover squad must be prepared to testify and swear to court affidavits or warrant applications if necessary.
• The Internal Affairs Action Desk personnel must be trained and regularly evaluated on being courteous and encouraging to complainants. The Language Line translation service must be made available to the Action Desk, as it has been to other commands within the Department.
• The Voluntary Assistance Program, better known as the Field Associate Program, must be reinvigorated, expanded, and placed under the direct control of the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs. All reports from Field Associates should be recorded and regularly reviewed for appropriate action by Internal Affairs.
• All information from complainants, informants, undercovers, field associates, and other sources should be made available to the Internal Affairs Corruption Prevention and Analysis Unit. That unit should use this information to insure effective case tracking, and produce complaint correlations, corruption trend and subject analysis, and corruption profiles that will be used as a basis to commence pro-active investigations of corrupt officers.
Investigative Approach
• Internal Affairs must focus exclusively on cases of serious corruption and crime. Internal Affairs must pursue police officers suspected of crimes and serious corruption with the same intensity as any other criminal activity outside the Department.
• Internal Affairs must adopt a chiefly pro-active investigative approach. While continuing to respond to complaints of corruption, the bulk of Internal Affairs investigations should be self-initiated and targeted where intelligence analysis suggests serious corruption exists.
• Complaints received by Internal Affairs should not be investigated in isolation. The focus of Internal Affairs investigations should expand beyond isolated allegations against an individual officer to focus on groups of potentially miscreant officers and patterns of corrupt activity.
• In pursuing corruption investigations, Internal Affairs must employ the full panoply of investigative techniques used in every other investigative division within the Department. Internal Affairs must use, as appropriate, undercover officers, criminal informants, and court-ordered electronic surveillance.
• Internal Affairs must never be reluctant to turn one corrupt officer against another. Because of aspects of police culture that conceal corruption, Internal Affairs should design their investigations to achieve the cooperation of corrupt officers against others, both to acquire evidence and to help undermine the code of silence on which corruption relies.
• Internal Affairs must increase the number, regularity and quality of targeted and random integrity tests. These tests must be carefully administered under the guidance of a prosecutor, well devised and tailored to the type of corruption under investigation, and aimed at officers or commands exhibiting a reasonable basis for suspecting corruption.
• Integrity tests should focus only on acquiring evidence of serious corruption and criminality. Tests that result only in minor infractions should be referred to local commanders.
• Internal Affairs must seek the assistance and legal counsel of the appropriate prosecutor at the earliest stages of a corruption investigation. The Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs should insure notification of prosecutors when internal investigators conduct field operations in their jurisdictions.
• Patrol Guide Procedure No. 118-9 should be amended to allow internal investigators to interrogate police officers under oath and with penalties for perjury.
• Investigations of serious corruption should not be closed until all evidence of corruption is uncovered or determined to be baseless. Cases with no investigative merit should be disposed of swiftly to avoid unnecessary backlog. All closings of cases of serious corruption should be reviewed by the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs and his staff. Any Internal Affairs officer who prematurely closes a case or approves such a closing, or has failed to employ sufficient investigative measures and resources, should be held to account. The basis for case closings should be regularly reviewed by the external independent monitor should one be created.
• Every allegation of corruption that is reported should immediately be recorded and receive a log number.
• District Attorneys should get copies of all corruption case logs on a daily basis.
Organizational Structure
• Internal Affairs' organizational structure should adopt the module team structure used by the Organized Crime Control Bureau. The structure must allow for more efficient decision-making authority and a more streamlined chain of command. Investigators actually conducting the case must be allowed operational authority. Investigative teams should be assigned to investigate geographic areas and special commands so that investigators acquire expertise in local corruption conditions and develop productive, trusting relationships with prosecutors. The final decision-making authority should reside with the Deputy Commissioner of Internal Affairs.
Command Liaisons
• To rehabilitate its reputation within other commands of the Department and educate the Department about its reformed philosophy and goals, Internal Affairs commanders with particularly strong reputations and experience in other commands should address police commanders, integrity control officers, and roll calls about corruption, civil rights violations, and the objectives of Internal Affairs.
Civil Rights Investigations
• Internal Affairs should immediately establish a Civil Rights Investigations Unit dedicated to the investigation of brutality, perjury, false arrests, and other types of civil rights violations. This unit should conduct its own self-initiated investigations as well as assist the Civilian Complaint Review Board in investigating force allegations lodged with that agency.
• Internal Affairs must examine correlations between corruption complaints and complaints of excessive force lodged with Internal Affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
• Command accountability must extend to acts of excessive force and civil rights violations. Corruption Assessment Reviews must include civil rights violation as a corruption hazard category.
• Recruit and In-Service integrity training must address excessive force and civil rights violations. Instruction must include alternatives to the use of force in policing and not merely instruction when force is justified as characterizes current training.
IV. SANCTIONS AND DETERRENCE
Effective sanctions and deterrence are also crucial components of corruption control. In the past, deterrence has been lacking from the Department's integrity controls, both because of the Department's own negligence as well as the obstacles imposed by existing laws. Many of the reforms we recommend throughout this chapter will heighten deterrence by increasing the risk of detection of corrupt activities. But there are a number of legislative and other reforms that can help strengthen the Department's detection and sanctioning efforts. Before leaving office, former Police Commissioner Kelly recommended a number of proposals designed to make discipline more effective. The Commission strongly endorses these proposals as sensible measures to insure that legal technicalities do not allow corrupt officers to "beat the system." These proposals, along with the Commission's recommendations in this area, are as follows:
Discipline
• Amend New York City Administrative Code, Section 13-246 to provide for a minimum period of ninety days notice to the Department before an officer is permitted to retire with full pension. The current minimum period of thirty days fails to allow the Department sufficient time to complete disciplinary proceedings before an officer retires and escapes the consequences of misconduct.
• Amend Public Officers Law Section 30(e) to allow for the revocation of lifetime pension benefits for officers convicted of a felony or federal law equivalent committed while in the performance of their duties. Corrupt officers should not be allowed to retain such benefits after such convictions.
• Amend Criminal Procedure Law Sections 160.50 and 160.55 to allow the Department statutory access to the sealed records of police officers who have been the subject of criminal proceedings. Such access is currently allowed with respect to police applicants and should not be denied in the case of sworn police officers who have been accused of crimes. In addition, Section 296 of the Executive Law should be amended to exempt such access and use as a discriminatory practice under the Human Rights Law.
• Amend Civil Service Law Section 75, Subdivision 4 to restore the statute of limitations for Department disciplinary proceedings to three years from the current eighteen months. The current statute of limitations defeats the goals of long-term corruption investigations.
• Amend Civil Service Law to allow for the demotion in rank and salary of sergeants, lieutenants and captains who have engaged in corruption or failed to carry out their supervisory duties. Current law precludes such demotions.
• Amend New York City Administrative Code Section 14-115 to provide the Police Commissioner with additional penalty options after an officer is found guilty in a Department disciplinary proceeding. Current law forces the Police Commissioner to choose between two narrow options: forfeiture of thirty days pay or dismissal from the Department. This problem can be corrected by permitting the Police Commissioner to impose the following penalties:
o 1. Suspension without pay for a period up to one year (the current maximum is thirty days)
o 2. A monetary fine of up to $25,000 (no monetary fine provision currently exists in the Administrative Code)
o 3. Demotion in grade or title, with a commensurate reduction in salary ( currently no demotion provision exists in the Administrative Code)
• On-Line Booking Sheets should be revised to require arresting officers to attest to the circumstances of the arrest under the penalties of Penal Law Section 210.45 relating to false written statements.
• The Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs should have an opportunity to submit recommendations to the Department Advocate's Office on the appropriate disposition of charges and sanctions for officers involved in Departmental disciplinary proceedings.
Disability Pension Abuse
The Board of Trustees of the Police Pension Fund has the authority to approve lifetime pension benefits to any police officer who is found to be physically or mentally unable to perform police duty. A police officer retired in this manner is entitled to a tax-free annual pension. If the officer is found to have sustained a total permanent disability in the line of duty, the amount of the annual tax-free pension benefit is no less than three-quarters of the officer's annual salary at the date of retirement. [19]
The Commission inquired, and learned from police officers, doctors, and other sources about the potential for abuse in the area of disability pensions. They painted a picture of a police pension system flawed by vaguely defined standards and overtones of favoritism. A police officer who is legitimately injured in the line of duty and suffers a disability should receive the full extent of the pension benefits available. However, evidence reveals that the law governing police pensions and related procedures does not reward only those who deserve it.
Officers told us that they were aware of officers who deliberately injured themselves to apply for disability pensions. Commission investigators were also told of occasions in which officers who received off-duty injuries falsely claimed that they were received while on duty. The Commission also detected a widespread perception among rank and file police officers that the Police Pension Board fails to aggressively investigate disability pension applications of high-ranking officers. They view the pension system as providing superior officers with a tax-free "brass parachute" when they retire from the Department.
Although the public is understandably disturbed when they see seemingly able-bodied officers receive tax-free lifetime pensions, it does not necessarily constitute corruption. As the pension laws are currently written the standard for determining whether an officer is disabled is vague. Recently the Department's Deputy Chief Surgeon, Dr. Gregory Fried, has undertaken a review of officers deemed disabled from 1991 to the present. In an interview with a Commission staff member, Dr. Fried stated that he found significant flaws in the current system of awarding disability pensions. Because there are no well defined medical criteria, he described the entire system as a "crapshoot." Because the standards are so vague, he believes they fail both to support legitimate claims and to winnow out fraudulent ones. As Dr. Fried put it, "Liars have a better chance of getting a disability pension. It creates police welfare for the phoney."
According to Dr. Fried, there is currently no coordination of effort among Internal Affairs, the Department Surgeon's Office, and the Department Advocate's Office to detect police officers who submit fraudulent disability pension claims. While it was beyond the mandate of this Commission to conduct an investigation of the police pension system, we note this as an area of concern for future inquiry.
V. COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Community Policing and Community Outreach
As the Department expands the implementation of community policing, many law enforcement officials, including police officers, have expressed their concern that officers' close relationship with citizens required for successful community policing will also expand the opportunities and incidence of police corruption. We believe that community policing may increase opportunities for corruption. Nonetheless, the value of the program to effective law enforcement and its commensurate benefits to the community far outweigh the risks involved. Community policing will, however, require that Internal Affairs be ever vigilant of the risks community policing presents.
Officers determined to engage in corruption will seek and find opportunities to do so whether or not they are community policing officers. Recent investigations conducted by the Commission and other agencies turned up corrupt officers assigned to a variety of commands, such as patrol, anti-crime, and the Organized Crime Control Bureau. The predominant forms of corruption we found, furthermore, offer opportunities to all officers working in drug-infested, cash-laden precincts regardless of their assignments. The police attitudes and pressures that foster and conceal corruption apply equally to all officers regardless of their particular assignment. In light of these circumstances, police corruption controls must be applied equally to whatever commands or individuals are susceptible to corruption.
Nonetheless, there are specific corruption control measures the Department should adopt in light of the characteristics of community policing. In particular, these measures should focus on educating the community about corruption hazards that officers face and their role in identifying and reporting suspected wrongdoing among the police officers on their beat. Having an educated and watchful community is particularly important for reducing the corruption risks of community policing. Because community policing must allow officers to have flexible tours of duty and sufficient discretion to determine the time and manner of their patrol, it presents special problems for close supervision. Consequently, the Department must achieve partnership with citizens to oversee the conduct of community policing officers.
To accomplish this, the Department must teach the public about what constitutes police corruption, how to report corruption they may observe or suspect, and support them when they make a valid complaint. More than anything else -- through its precinct commanders, precinct councils, and community affairs programs -- the Department must overcome the public's cynicism about the Department's commitment to integrity and its willingness to take their complainants seriously. If community policing is to succeed, mutual respect and cooperation between the police and the community must be achieved.
On the other hand, the Department must also educate citizens that police corruption does not exist in a vacuum and that those who solicit corrupt acts from police officers or assist them in engaging in corruption will be arrested and prosecuted. The 30th Precinct investigation demonstrated that citizens, whether they be drug dealers, shop owners, building superintendents, or local residents, participate in and assist officers in corruption schemes. Through arrests, prosecutions, and community outreach, the Department must put such people on notice that corruption investigations will focus on their activities as well as on the corrupt officers with whom they associate. As in the 30th Precinct case, the Department must show the public that it will arrest and prosecute citizens who are accomplices to police corruption.
In light of these observations, the Commission recommends the following measures:
• Expand and promote the Citizen's Police Academy program and other community outreach efforts, to educate citizens about corruption hazards and the role of the community in minimizing corruption.
• Community policing supervisors should provide information to local residents and businesses about corruption hazards and how to report corruption to the Department.
• Community policing supervisors should regularly interview local residents and business persons about the performance of the officers in their units.
• Commanding officers and Internal Affairs representatives should address precinct community councils on police corruption, the community's role in reducing corruption risks, and the means of reporting corruption to the Department.
• Internal Affairs should conduct pro-active investigations, including integrity tests, against individuals who create corruption opportunities or assist officers in engaging in corruption.
• Precinct numerals and other identifying marks on radio motor patrol cars should be made larger and more easily recognizable to citizens and police supervisors.
• Internal Affairs investigations and intelligence-gathering should focus on individuals who act as accomplices to officers in corruption schemes.
***
The Commission believes that the implementation of these procedural and policy reforms will considerably strengthen the Department's integrity controls and help insure the public's confidence in the Department's ability to police itself.
No integrity controls, however, will last forever without the demand of the public and the commitment of the Department to insure that they remain effective. We cannot, as we have done too often in the past, place absolute faith in any set of reforms to insure integrity and defeat complacency for the next generation and beyond. Too often, our faith turned out to be blind. Without integrity controls rooted in the Department's own pride and commitment, no set of reforms -- no matter how creative and well devised -- can work. History has taught us that the Department cannot sustain reform efforts without incentive and support from the outside. Thus, an external entity independent of the Department must provide continual monitoring and pressure to insure that the Department makes successful integrity controls a high priority now and in the future. The Department and the public deserve no less.
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Notes:
16. The total number of officers in the study was four hundred thirteen. Fewer officers are sometimes referred to for particular aspects of the study. This is because for certain areas we examined, information on all the officers was not available.
17. The probationary period consists of six months of Police Academy training and twelve months in a field training unit.
18. This procedure requires the Department to confer immunity from criminal prosecution before interrogating officers.
19. New York City Charter and Administrative Code Section 13-206.
II. COMMAND ACCOUNTABILITY
Enforcement of Command Accountability
One of the most pervasive managerial failures the Commission has observed in the Department over recent years is its failure to maintain the system of command accountability. The cornerstone of the Department's anti-corruption strategy, command accountability requires a comprehensive commitment to successful corruption control throughout the Department, especially from field commanders. Ideally, the entire Department should be infused with values that discourage corruption. But at the very least, field commanders should be held responsible for the state of corruption within their commands. If corruption control fails, field commanders, as well as internal investigators, should answer for it. If it succeeds, they should be commended.
Successful command accountability is particularly important because it can, as it has in the past, change the organizational culture of the Department. Command accountability forces corruption control to be the responsibility of all the Department's managers and pushes anti-corruption priorities out into the field. Under this principle, protecting the integrity of police officers is vested not just in Internal Affairs but in every stationhouse in the City.
Without the principle of accountability becoming standard operating procedure throughout the Department, no system of corruption control, no matter how well devised and equipped, is likely to succeed. When the public sees groups of police officers arrested for crimes they committed while on duty and in uniform, it demands an answer to the question of how such corruption could possibly have occurred without police supervisors detecting it and making every effort to stop it. The Department must provide an answer to that question if it ever hopes to restore the public's confidence in its integrity and good faith. It also owes that answer to its own rank and file who feel they are the only targets in corruption probes, while the bosses are never called to account.
Some have argued that with the elimination of the FIAUs -- which, in theory, served as the investigative tool for field commanders to uncover corruption -- field commanders cannot fairly be held accountable for corruption on their watch.
We do not agree. As discussed in Chapter Four, the FIAUs were rarely used as a management tool by borough or precinct commanders to effectively fight corruption -- nor were they used by the Department as a basis for enforcing command accountability. We believe that command accountability need not depend solely on commanders investigating corruption through field units. Commanders can and should be held accountable for their efforts in preventing and detecting corruption, reporting it to IAD, and assisting with any ensuing investigation. They must make it clear to their subordinates that they will not tolerate corruption or the code of silence in their commands; that they will reward those who come forward to report corruption, and, when appropriate, sanction those who do not; they must insure that supervisors vigorously pursue and report their suspicions about corruption; and in particular they must use their Integrity Control Officers to monitor and identify corruption problems in the precinct, including through such means as monitoring the precinct radio, spot checking arrest scenes and identifying other corruption hazards and problem officers. When they want their suspicions pursued, commanders still have an investigative arm: the Internal Affairs Bureau. In sum, we believe the basis for fair and firm enforcement of command accountability exists -- even without the FIAUs -- if the recommendations that follow are carried out.
Enforcement of command accountability, however, is not easy. It does not simply mean that a superior officer's head must roll for every instance of corruption -- as the press and others often demand. After all, disclosure of corruption can be evidence of good, as well as poor, performance in fighting corruption. A strict liability standard -- imposing sanctions whenever corruption is uncovered -- is not only unfair but it creates incentives to conceal or transfer corruption rather than uproot it. On the other hand, subjective, conclusory decisions on liability made by commanders or chiefs is also unfair. The Department must make commanders understand that they will be judged fairly and regularly for their anti-corruption attitudes; that they will be rewarded or penalized on the basis of their actual performance in uncovering corruption -- not on the fact that corruption exists. But making such determinations requires time and effort. It requires factual inquiries and investigations, not just conclusory pronouncements on culpability or diligence. It requires an investigation into what commanders knew or should have known and the measures they took or failed to take to prevent or uncover corruption in their command. Without making such genuine determinations, command accountability will continue to be mere rhetoric rather than actual practice.
A major failure of the Department's past approach to command accountability has been that no mechanism was ever put into place to enforce it. No person or unit was ever responsible for determining when corruption disclosures reflected supervisory neglect or vigilance. Most people presume the Police Commissioner enforces command accountability, but no Commissioner ever instituted a mechanism to monitor commanders' performance and, when necessary, determine culpability. As a result, such determinations were rarely made.
Command accountability also requires that commanders understand that they will be judged regularly, not only during scandals, for their anti-corruption performance. A tool that was initially intended to help keep commanders accountable was the annual Corruption Assessment Report. Since the 1970s, precinct commanders and heads of police units have been required to report the state of corruption and corruption hazards within their commands by submitting this Report to the Police Commissioner. The Commission's inquiries showed that, over the last decade, what began as a possibly useful integrity control and command accountability tool has become useless boilerplate. Commanding officers file essentially the same report year after year with only superficial changes.
The Department should reform this potentially useful tool. It should require all commanding officers, including borough, precinct and unit commanders to participate in an annual Corruption Assessment Review; a face-to-face briefing session with Internal Affairs commanders to apprise Internal Affairs of the following information: (i) corruption hazards within their commands; (ii) intelligence information about corruption-prone officers; (iii) the level of supervision within the command; (iv) efforts to prevent corruption; (v) management problems that impede corruption control; and, (vi) any need for additional resources or assistance from IAB to deter or uncover corruption. We recommend that the commanding officer be required to memorialize the substance of the Corruption Assessment Review in a brief report that should be submitted to the First Deputy Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs.
We expect such personal briefing sessions will serve a number of important purposes. First, they will insure regular monitoring and evaluation of commanders' anti-corruption performance. Second, they will motivate Internal Affairs and field commanders to engage in productive relationships to control corruption and help overcome the isolation and mistrust that has long divided field commanders and Internal Affairs officers. They will help encourage commanders to view IAB as a management tool they can use to fight corruption rather than as potential trouble-makers. Third, they will compel commanders to take a more active and personal role in deterring and reporting corruption within their commands. Fourth, they will force commanding officers to give careful consideration to the corruption hazards in their commands and their plans to address them, rather than allowing them to rely on outdated and repetitive written reports. Finally, they will allow command accountability inquiries to focus not only on a commanding officer's knowledge and actions, but on the adequacy of Internal Affairs' response. In the event corruption comes to light in a command where a field commander or Internal Affairs commander failed to address the problem, they should be held equally to account for their omissions.
Commissioner Bratton has begun to make the importance of command accountability clear to police supervisors. In the wake of the 30th Precinct investigation and the Commission's findings on the collapse of command accountability, he has stated publicly that scrutiny of supervisors has been lax over the past decade and that police supervisors who turn a blind eye to corruption do so at great risk. The Commission has seen a considerable effort on the part of the Department to revitalize genuine command accountability. The challenge is to sustain and reinforce that effort over the years. To accomplish that, the Commission has concluded that the principle of command accountability must be completely reinvented. To help achieve this goal, we present the following recommendations:
• The Police Commissioner should make clear his total commitment to enforce the principle of accountability to all police commanders and supervisors.
• Establish a special Command Accountability Review Unit to conduct post-corruption disclosure investigations to identify the supervisors and commanders who knew or should have known about corruption within their commands and failed to take adequate measures to prevent and report it, as well as those who performed diligently in this area. The unit should also determine whether commanders provided appropriate assistance to internal investigators during a corruption investigation. The unit should operate under the direction of the First Deputy Commissioner and should include a representative from our recommended external independent monitor, should one be created.
• The performance of the Command Accountability Review Unit should be monitored by the independent external monitor.
• The Police Commissioner should provide for sanctions, including demotion or dismissal, for supervisors who failed in their duties, as determined by the Command Accountability Review Board.
• The Police Commissioner should publicly reward supervisors who have demonstrated their commitment to integrity, as determined by the Command Accountability Review Board, or by other means.
• The Department should factor superior corruption control performance in promotion and assignment practices.
• The Police Commissioner should require commanders to participate in yearly Corruption Assessment Reviews with Internal Affairs commanders which insures that commanders will be regularly monitored and assisted with their anti-corruption performance.
• Train police supervisors and commanders in the indications and conditions suggesting corruption is taking place so that they make accurate assessments of the corruption hazards in their commands.
• Internal Affairs should keep precinct commanders informed of the existence and developments of corruption investigations within their commands and require them to assist in investigations.
• The Command Accountability Review Unit should also review and determine the adequacy of Internal Affairs' response to information on corruption received from supervisors and commanders, as well as the adequacy of its assistance to supervisors and commanders. Internal Affairs commanders should be held accountable for poor performance in this area or rewarded for outstanding performance.
Supervision
In the course of the Commission's investigations into precincts where corruption existed, we found sparse and ineffectual supervision at every turn. The failure of effective supervision has been a major contributing factor not only to corruption but to the climate of tolerance that makes it possible. As we stated in our Interim Report, many supervisors of all levels acted as if it was better not to know about, much less, report corruption. If the Department has any hope of minimizing corruption in future years, that attitude must change. The Commission recognizes that the demands of police work inevitably make close supervision a very difficult goal. But effective corruption control must begin with strong supervision.
While the Commission found, in most instances, no hard evidence that most supervisors were directly engaged in corrupt acts, in precincts such as the 9th, 30th, 46th, 73rd and 75th, and where groups of police officers engaged in outright criminal activity, it is hard to believe that supervisors were ignorant of the corruption of their subordinates. In fact, a number of supervisors knew or should have known about corruption within their commands and did nothing to stop it.
Of all supervisory positions, sergeants, as first-line field supervisors, were in the best position to know about corruption. Unfortunately, in too many cases explored by the Commission, sergeants failed to serve as a deterrent to corruption. There are a number of reasons for this, not all of which reflect poorly on the abilities or commitment of individual sergeants and other supervisors. These reasons, plus additional findings on supervision failures were discussed in detail in Chapter Four. A brief summary of these deficiencies follows.
To begin, sergeants have suffered a dramatic dilution of authority in recent years. They are increasingly young, inexperienced, and often feel more loyal to their subordinates than to the Department's managers. They are eligible to take the sergeants' examination immediately after their term as a probationary officer expires, which means after only eighteen months' experience as a police officer. Establishing their credibility and authority is thus often difficult.
There is also a critical shortage of sergeants in many precincts within the Department causing an unmanageable span of supervision, or ratio of supervisors to patrol officers. While police experts have recommended a supervision ratio of one sergeant to ten officers, we found in some precincts, sergeants were responsible for supervising more than thirty officers in any given tour. It was not uncommon, furthermore, for sergeants to be assigned supervision of patrol officers in two separate precincts in the same tour. Under such conditions, it is practically impossible for sergeants to know what their subordinates are doing at any given time -- which is no secret to officers on the streets. Even in precincts with manageable numbers of subordinates to supervise, sergeants must perform a host of administrative duties that require them to devote more time to paperwork than to active field supervision.
In many high-crime precincts, sergeants do no supervising at all. Besides their supervisory and administrative duties, sergeants assigned to such precincts routinely handle calls for service during busy periods, which are the responsibility of patrol officers -- which further undermines their authority.
Department commanders often assigned sergeants and other supervisors without regard to prior experience, training or the needs of the particular command. Inexperienced probationary sergeants were often assigned to busy, corruption-prone precincts where experienced and proven supervisors were most needed.
Even more troubling, many supervisors and commanders do not perceive corruption control as part of their responsibility. In past years, the Department did little to suggest otherwise. It rarely trained supervisors on corruption control or held them responsible for their performance.
The Department also did little to support the precinct Integrity Control Officer ("ICO") who is responsible for assisting precinct and unit commanders with corruption issues. ICOs spend most of their time controlling paper rather than corruption. They are also isolated from IAD and are rarely provided with information about corruption in their commands. In sum, they have become clerks rather than corruption fighters.
To reverse the problem of ineffective supervision, the Department must first make clear to all supervisors that they have a critical role in preventing and detecting corruption. That message must start with training and must be reinforced by application of the principle of personal accountability. In the past, the Department's training of supervisors was inadequate. Most sergeants and lieutenants we interviewed harshly criticized the Department's management training courses. They claimed they taught them nothing about how to manage and supervise subordinates -- and were basically a mere patrol guide refresher course that failed to realistically address the practical problems supervisors face in today's environment. Moreover, supervisors, received no training in how to detect and prevent corruption on their watch or how to identify corruption-prone officers. They received no message about the importance of carrying out their anti-corruption duties.
The Department must also train supervisors on how to effectively communicate with a diverse patrol force. Such training, especially with a growing minority contingent is vital to any diverse group. It is especially important to groups that spend hours together. Our investigation revealed that certain minority officers sometimes feel themselves to be outsiders in a basically white Department. While it is not uncommon for minorities in any large group to feel this way, various studies suggest that human interaction training can heighten morale and loyalty and lessen alienation.
In recent months, the Department has moved swiftly to correct many of the supervision problems identified by the Commission. Recently, the Department promoted approximately four hundred new sergeants and has begun to reform supervisory training by establishing a Sergeants' Academy that provides anti-corruption training and in-service leadership seminars for supervisors of all ranks.
In light of the Commission's findings on police supervision, we offer the following reform recommendations:
• Require officers to have at least three years of service experience before becoming eligible for promotion to sergeant.
• The Department should reform its supervisory staffing model to insure that appropriate numbers of experienced and proven sergeants are assigned to the most corruption-prone precincts and that supervision in such commands be maintained at an appropriate ratio of sergeants to officers.
• In precincts where sergeants are required to perform patrol duties or nonsupervisory functions, a second sergeant should be assigned exclusively to supervise officers on patrol.
• The Department should increase the number of field supervisors during midnight tours of duty in corruption-prone precincts.
• The Department should not require sergeants to supervise more than one precinct during the same tour of duty.
• The Department should examine whether certain administrative tasks of patrol sergeants and ICOs can be eliminated or curtailed to allow them to devote more time to field supervision.
• The Department should promulgate a clear policy on the duties and responsibilities of ICOs that focuses on their responsibility for precinct integrity controls. ICOs should be used to reinforce professional values, detect evidence of corruption, and ferret out wrongdoing and inefficiency.
• ICOs should receive specialized integrity control training and the resources necessary to perform an active anti-corruption role in their commands by gathering intelligence, monitoring precinct corruption hazards, monitoring the precinct radio, spot monitoring arrest scenes, communicating with Internal Affairs, and investigating allegations of misconduct.
• ICOs should be required to conduct precinct corruption-prevention audits by reviewing arrest reports, requests for overtime pay, stop and frisk reports, declinations to prosecute, copies of criminal court complaints, and other documents to determine patterns of questionable arrests and identify other indications of corruption. ICOs should advise precinct commanders where levels of supervision need to be increased.
• The Internal Affairs Bureau should establish regular, in-command liaison with ICOs and use their services in intelligence-gathering and investigations.
• The Department's recently established Sergeants' Academy should include a course of instruction that emphasizes practical management skills, establishing command authority, integrity control methods, and leadership qualities necessary to be an effective first-line supervisor. The course of instruction should be based on interactive methods of instruction and field work in the City's busy, high-crime precincts. All new sergeants should be trained in identifying indicators of corruption, brutality, and substance abuse.
• Require periodic in-service training for all supervisory ranks in corruption, brutality, and substance abuse detection and prevention. The training should include realistic, interactive instruction based on profiles of corruption-prone officers and commands.
• The Department should establish regular in-service leadership seminars for all police supervisors, including racial and cultural diversity training.
III. INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS
Internal Affairs Operations
Over the past two years, this Commission, the media, and recently, the Department itself have focused a great deal of attention on the litany of failures of the Department's internal anti-corruption apparatus. As the Commission has reported, our investigation revealed a corruption investigation system that often minimized and even concealed corruption rather than rooted it out. Oversight of Internal Affairs was virtually non-existent, intelligence-gathering efforts were negligible, corruption investigations were often deliberately limited and prematurely closed, and the appearance of integrity was more important than the reality. In short, genuine commitment to fighting corruption had virtually disappeared and Internal Affairs had abandoned its mission to remove serious corruption from the Department.
The Department has come to acknowledge the vast problems infecting Internal Affairs identified by the Commission, and the Department has begun to act. Under the leadership of Commissioners Kelly and Bratton, Internal Affairs has gone through many important changes. Internal Affairs operations have now been centralized into one Bureau headed by a civilian Deputy Commissioner, Walter Mack, an experienced and skillful former prosecutor who has done much to energize and expand the Department's internal investigations. The organizational structure of the Internal Affairs Bureau has changed a number of times as the Department seeks the best structure to support Internal Affairs' mission. A large turnover in personnel has occurred with many of the complacent and incompetent executives of Internal Affairs either having retired from the Department or been transferred from the Bureau. Some experienced and respected investigators have joined Internal Affairs and the Bureau has been allocated over two million dollars in advanced investigative equipment and a new computerized case-tracking system.
Most important, the Commission has detected a heightened commitment and assertiveness on the part of Internal Affairs investigators. While uncovering the largest police corruption case in recent history, Commission investigators worked side by side with investigators of the Internal Affairs Bureau. At every turn in the investigation, the Internal Affairs investigators worked tirelessly to uncover the full scope of corruption within that precinct and were unwaveringly committed to acquiring the necessary evidence to root it all out. We recognize that the Department acted in this manner under the light of outside scrutiny by this Commission. But the point is with such oversight it acted with skill and uncompromising zeal.
Fundamental problems, however, do remain. First, while we certainly detected an increased commitment and effectiveness on the part of Internal Affairs commanders and investigators with whom we worked, we cannot be certain that this new attitude has spread throughout the Bureau. We continue to see the need for continued emphasis on swift and efficient decision-making and the placement of operational authority in the hands of the investigators most familiar with case strategy, focus, and goals.
Second, most officers still have little trust or respect for Internal Affairs. Overwhelmingly, officers of all ranks interviewed by the Commission and the Department continue to view Internal Affairs as a group of petty, inexperienced, and incompetent investigators with no knowledge of the demands of real police work. They contemptuously describe Internal Affairs as a "white socks and no hats" operation that focuses on pestering hard-working officers with petty infractions rather than aggressively pursuing allegations of serious corruption and criminality. Officers express great concern that Internal Affairs' failure to investigate allegations fully and its tendency to close cases as "unsubstantiated" or by noting minor misconduct unfairly hurts their chances for choice assignments and promotion.
Even worse, officers remain very skeptical about Internal Affairs' handling of police informants and its ability and willingness to insure confidentiality to officers who report corruption. A great many officers believe that Internal Affairs will disclose the identity of complainants or turn the focus of an investigation toward the very officer who made the allegation. An officer willing to violate the code of silence to report corruption will hardly turn to investigators he believes to be incompetent, unsupportive, and even vindictive.
Internal Affairs must first and foremost re-establish its credibility among members of the Department if it hopes to fight corruption effectively. Only by regaining its credibility will it recruit respected investigators and proven commanders, overcome the code of silence, and help spread a climate of intolerance for corruption throughout the Department.
To do so, the Department must assure Internal Affairs sufficient personnel, resources and support to prove itself a serious and sophisticated investigations unit that focuses exclusively on serious corruption and criminality and gains a reputation for success in removing corrupt and criminal officers from the job and exonerating honest officers from baseless allegations. Internal Affairs must become an investigations unit that launches investigative initiatives based on intelligence and analysis without relying on a reactive, complaint-driven system. By its actions, Internal Affairs must make police officers understand that it will vigorously pursue officers involved in crimes and serious corruption even if their colleagues and associates remain silent. Successful self-initiated investigations will quickly convince officers that their reliance on silence as a shield for wrongdoing is gravely misplaced. In short, it is imperative that Internal Affairs earn the respect and support of the entire Department.
In light of our analysis of Internal Affairs' past failures and its urgent need to regain the confidence of the police and the public alike, the Commission offers the following recommendations for reform. We believe implementation of these reforms will go a long way in protecting the Department's system of internal investigations against future decay.
Recruitment of Qualified Investigators
• Internal Affairs must improve the quality and reputation of its investigators. The Department should offer incentives and rewards to attract the best investigators available. Until such time as Internal Affairs attracts highly qualified volunteers, the Department should continue its recent policy of allowing Internal Affairs first choice of supervisors seeking assignment to an investigative unit. Internal Affairs should continue its policy of rotating its staff to avoid stagnation and increase the number of supervisors with corruption investigation experience throughout the Department. Service in Internal Affairs should be viewed as a positive factor in the career path of a police officer.
• The Police Commissioner should make every effort to recruit as commanders of Internal Affairs officers who have a Department-wide reputation for varied experience, management and investigative skill and outstanding leadership ability.
• The Department should recognize the outstanding performance of Internal Affairs investigators with citations, commendations, and promotions as it does for officers assigned to other commands.
Intelligence-Gathering Operations
• Internal Affairs must immediately strengthen its intelligence-gathering analysis operations. All witnesses, complainants, and informants must be assured absolute confidentiality or anonymity. This is particularly crucial for police officer complainants or informants. Any Internal Affairs officer who breaches confidentiality must be sanctioned severely.
• Debriefing informants and cooperating defendants on police corruption should become a regular practice among all investigative units within the Department, such as the Detective Bureau and the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Such investigators must actively pursue information on police corruption. All such information should be promptly reported to Internal Affairs.
• Internal Affairs must recruit and operate a cadre of undercover officers in the most corruption-prone precincts and commands. Their role should be to gather information on corruption within their commands and provide the basis for integrity tests, electronic surveillance, and other pro-active investigative measures. Members of the Internal Affairs undercover squad must be prepared to testify and swear to court affidavits or warrant applications if necessary.
• The Internal Affairs Action Desk personnel must be trained and regularly evaluated on being courteous and encouraging to complainants. The Language Line translation service must be made available to the Action Desk, as it has been to other commands within the Department.
• The Voluntary Assistance Program, better known as the Field Associate Program, must be reinvigorated, expanded, and placed under the direct control of the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs. All reports from Field Associates should be recorded and regularly reviewed for appropriate action by Internal Affairs.
• All information from complainants, informants, undercovers, field associates, and other sources should be made available to the Internal Affairs Corruption Prevention and Analysis Unit. That unit should use this information to insure effective case tracking, and produce complaint correlations, corruption trend and subject analysis, and corruption profiles that will be used as a basis to commence pro-active investigations of corrupt officers.
Investigative Approach
• Internal Affairs must focus exclusively on cases of serious corruption and crime. Internal Affairs must pursue police officers suspected of crimes and serious corruption with the same intensity as any other criminal activity outside the Department.
• Internal Affairs must adopt a chiefly pro-active investigative approach. While continuing to respond to complaints of corruption, the bulk of Internal Affairs investigations should be self-initiated and targeted where intelligence analysis suggests serious corruption exists.
• Complaints received by Internal Affairs should not be investigated in isolation. The focus of Internal Affairs investigations should expand beyond isolated allegations against an individual officer to focus on groups of potentially miscreant officers and patterns of corrupt activity.
• In pursuing corruption investigations, Internal Affairs must employ the full panoply of investigative techniques used in every other investigative division within the Department. Internal Affairs must use, as appropriate, undercover officers, criminal informants, and court-ordered electronic surveillance.
• Internal Affairs must never be reluctant to turn one corrupt officer against another. Because of aspects of police culture that conceal corruption, Internal Affairs should design their investigations to achieve the cooperation of corrupt officers against others, both to acquire evidence and to help undermine the code of silence on which corruption relies.
• Internal Affairs must increase the number, regularity and quality of targeted and random integrity tests. These tests must be carefully administered under the guidance of a prosecutor, well devised and tailored to the type of corruption under investigation, and aimed at officers or commands exhibiting a reasonable basis for suspecting corruption.
• Integrity tests should focus only on acquiring evidence of serious corruption and criminality. Tests that result only in minor infractions should be referred to local commanders.
• Internal Affairs must seek the assistance and legal counsel of the appropriate prosecutor at the earliest stages of a corruption investigation. The Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs should insure notification of prosecutors when internal investigators conduct field operations in their jurisdictions.
• Patrol Guide Procedure No. 118-9 should be amended to allow internal investigators to interrogate police officers under oath and with penalties for perjury.
• Investigations of serious corruption should not be closed until all evidence of corruption is uncovered or determined to be baseless. Cases with no investigative merit should be disposed of swiftly to avoid unnecessary backlog. All closings of cases of serious corruption should be reviewed by the Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs and his staff. Any Internal Affairs officer who prematurely closes a case or approves such a closing, or has failed to employ sufficient investigative measures and resources, should be held to account. The basis for case closings should be regularly reviewed by the external independent monitor should one be created.
• Every allegation of corruption that is reported should immediately be recorded and receive a log number.
• District Attorneys should get copies of all corruption case logs on a daily basis.
Organizational Structure
• Internal Affairs' organizational structure should adopt the module team structure used by the Organized Crime Control Bureau. The structure must allow for more efficient decision-making authority and a more streamlined chain of command. Investigators actually conducting the case must be allowed operational authority. Investigative teams should be assigned to investigate geographic areas and special commands so that investigators acquire expertise in local corruption conditions and develop productive, trusting relationships with prosecutors. The final decision-making authority should reside with the Deputy Commissioner of Internal Affairs.
Command Liaisons
• To rehabilitate its reputation within other commands of the Department and educate the Department about its reformed philosophy and goals, Internal Affairs commanders with particularly strong reputations and experience in other commands should address police commanders, integrity control officers, and roll calls about corruption, civil rights violations, and the objectives of Internal Affairs.
Civil Rights Investigations
• Internal Affairs should immediately establish a Civil Rights Investigations Unit dedicated to the investigation of brutality, perjury, false arrests, and other types of civil rights violations. This unit should conduct its own self-initiated investigations as well as assist the Civilian Complaint Review Board in investigating force allegations lodged with that agency.
• Internal Affairs must examine correlations between corruption complaints and complaints of excessive force lodged with Internal Affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
• Command accountability must extend to acts of excessive force and civil rights violations. Corruption Assessment Reviews must include civil rights violation as a corruption hazard category.
• Recruit and In-Service integrity training must address excessive force and civil rights violations. Instruction must include alternatives to the use of force in policing and not merely instruction when force is justified as characterizes current training.
IV. SANCTIONS AND DETERRENCE
Effective sanctions and deterrence are also crucial components of corruption control. In the past, deterrence has been lacking from the Department's integrity controls, both because of the Department's own negligence as well as the obstacles imposed by existing laws. Many of the reforms we recommend throughout this chapter will heighten deterrence by increasing the risk of detection of corrupt activities. But there are a number of legislative and other reforms that can help strengthen the Department's detection and sanctioning efforts. Before leaving office, former Police Commissioner Kelly recommended a number of proposals designed to make discipline more effective. The Commission strongly endorses these proposals as sensible measures to insure that legal technicalities do not allow corrupt officers to "beat the system." These proposals, along with the Commission's recommendations in this area, are as follows:
Discipline
• Amend New York City Administrative Code, Section 13-246 to provide for a minimum period of ninety days notice to the Department before an officer is permitted to retire with full pension. The current minimum period of thirty days fails to allow the Department sufficient time to complete disciplinary proceedings before an officer retires and escapes the consequences of misconduct.
• Amend Public Officers Law Section 30(e) to allow for the revocation of lifetime pension benefits for officers convicted of a felony or federal law equivalent committed while in the performance of their duties. Corrupt officers should not be allowed to retain such benefits after such convictions.
• Amend Criminal Procedure Law Sections 160.50 and 160.55 to allow the Department statutory access to the sealed records of police officers who have been the subject of criminal proceedings. Such access is currently allowed with respect to police applicants and should not be denied in the case of sworn police officers who have been accused of crimes. In addition, Section 296 of the Executive Law should be amended to exempt such access and use as a discriminatory practice under the Human Rights Law.
• Amend Civil Service Law Section 75, Subdivision 4 to restore the statute of limitations for Department disciplinary proceedings to three years from the current eighteen months. The current statute of limitations defeats the goals of long-term corruption investigations.
• Amend Civil Service Law to allow for the demotion in rank and salary of sergeants, lieutenants and captains who have engaged in corruption or failed to carry out their supervisory duties. Current law precludes such demotions.
• Amend New York City Administrative Code Section 14-115 to provide the Police Commissioner with additional penalty options after an officer is found guilty in a Department disciplinary proceeding. Current law forces the Police Commissioner to choose between two narrow options: forfeiture of thirty days pay or dismissal from the Department. This problem can be corrected by permitting the Police Commissioner to impose the following penalties:
o 1. Suspension without pay for a period up to one year (the current maximum is thirty days)
o 2. A monetary fine of up to $25,000 (no monetary fine provision currently exists in the Administrative Code)
o 3. Demotion in grade or title, with a commensurate reduction in salary ( currently no demotion provision exists in the Administrative Code)
• On-Line Booking Sheets should be revised to require arresting officers to attest to the circumstances of the arrest under the penalties of Penal Law Section 210.45 relating to false written statements.
• The Deputy Commissioner for Internal Affairs should have an opportunity to submit recommendations to the Department Advocate's Office on the appropriate disposition of charges and sanctions for officers involved in Departmental disciplinary proceedings.
Disability Pension Abuse
The Board of Trustees of the Police Pension Fund has the authority to approve lifetime pension benefits to any police officer who is found to be physically or mentally unable to perform police duty. A police officer retired in this manner is entitled to a tax-free annual pension. If the officer is found to have sustained a total permanent disability in the line of duty, the amount of the annual tax-free pension benefit is no less than three-quarters of the officer's annual salary at the date of retirement. [19]
The Commission inquired, and learned from police officers, doctors, and other sources about the potential for abuse in the area of disability pensions. They painted a picture of a police pension system flawed by vaguely defined standards and overtones of favoritism. A police officer who is legitimately injured in the line of duty and suffers a disability should receive the full extent of the pension benefits available. However, evidence reveals that the law governing police pensions and related procedures does not reward only those who deserve it.
Officers told us that they were aware of officers who deliberately injured themselves to apply for disability pensions. Commission investigators were also told of occasions in which officers who received off-duty injuries falsely claimed that they were received while on duty. The Commission also detected a widespread perception among rank and file police officers that the Police Pension Board fails to aggressively investigate disability pension applications of high-ranking officers. They view the pension system as providing superior officers with a tax-free "brass parachute" when they retire from the Department.
Although the public is understandably disturbed when they see seemingly able-bodied officers receive tax-free lifetime pensions, it does not necessarily constitute corruption. As the pension laws are currently written the standard for determining whether an officer is disabled is vague. Recently the Department's Deputy Chief Surgeon, Dr. Gregory Fried, has undertaken a review of officers deemed disabled from 1991 to the present. In an interview with a Commission staff member, Dr. Fried stated that he found significant flaws in the current system of awarding disability pensions. Because there are no well defined medical criteria, he described the entire system as a "crapshoot." Because the standards are so vague, he believes they fail both to support legitimate claims and to winnow out fraudulent ones. As Dr. Fried put it, "Liars have a better chance of getting a disability pension. It creates police welfare for the phoney."
According to Dr. Fried, there is currently no coordination of effort among Internal Affairs, the Department Surgeon's Office, and the Department Advocate's Office to detect police officers who submit fraudulent disability pension claims. While it was beyond the mandate of this Commission to conduct an investigation of the police pension system, we note this as an area of concern for future inquiry.
V. COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Community Policing and Community Outreach
As the Department expands the implementation of community policing, many law enforcement officials, including police officers, have expressed their concern that officers' close relationship with citizens required for successful community policing will also expand the opportunities and incidence of police corruption. We believe that community policing may increase opportunities for corruption. Nonetheless, the value of the program to effective law enforcement and its commensurate benefits to the community far outweigh the risks involved. Community policing will, however, require that Internal Affairs be ever vigilant of the risks community policing presents.
Officers determined to engage in corruption will seek and find opportunities to do so whether or not they are community policing officers. Recent investigations conducted by the Commission and other agencies turned up corrupt officers assigned to a variety of commands, such as patrol, anti-crime, and the Organized Crime Control Bureau. The predominant forms of corruption we found, furthermore, offer opportunities to all officers working in drug-infested, cash-laden precincts regardless of their assignments. The police attitudes and pressures that foster and conceal corruption apply equally to all officers regardless of their particular assignment. In light of these circumstances, police corruption controls must be applied equally to whatever commands or individuals are susceptible to corruption.
Nonetheless, there are specific corruption control measures the Department should adopt in light of the characteristics of community policing. In particular, these measures should focus on educating the community about corruption hazards that officers face and their role in identifying and reporting suspected wrongdoing among the police officers on their beat. Having an educated and watchful community is particularly important for reducing the corruption risks of community policing. Because community policing must allow officers to have flexible tours of duty and sufficient discretion to determine the time and manner of their patrol, it presents special problems for close supervision. Consequently, the Department must achieve partnership with citizens to oversee the conduct of community policing officers.
To accomplish this, the Department must teach the public about what constitutes police corruption, how to report corruption they may observe or suspect, and support them when they make a valid complaint. More than anything else -- through its precinct commanders, precinct councils, and community affairs programs -- the Department must overcome the public's cynicism about the Department's commitment to integrity and its willingness to take their complainants seriously. If community policing is to succeed, mutual respect and cooperation between the police and the community must be achieved.
On the other hand, the Department must also educate citizens that police corruption does not exist in a vacuum and that those who solicit corrupt acts from police officers or assist them in engaging in corruption will be arrested and prosecuted. The 30th Precinct investigation demonstrated that citizens, whether they be drug dealers, shop owners, building superintendents, or local residents, participate in and assist officers in corruption schemes. Through arrests, prosecutions, and community outreach, the Department must put such people on notice that corruption investigations will focus on their activities as well as on the corrupt officers with whom they associate. As in the 30th Precinct case, the Department must show the public that it will arrest and prosecute citizens who are accomplices to police corruption.
In light of these observations, the Commission recommends the following measures:
• Expand and promote the Citizen's Police Academy program and other community outreach efforts, to educate citizens about corruption hazards and the role of the community in minimizing corruption.
• Community policing supervisors should provide information to local residents and businesses about corruption hazards and how to report corruption to the Department.
• Community policing supervisors should regularly interview local residents and business persons about the performance of the officers in their units.
• Commanding officers and Internal Affairs representatives should address precinct community councils on police corruption, the community's role in reducing corruption risks, and the means of reporting corruption to the Department.
• Internal Affairs should conduct pro-active investigations, including integrity tests, against individuals who create corruption opportunities or assist officers in engaging in corruption.
• Precinct numerals and other identifying marks on radio motor patrol cars should be made larger and more easily recognizable to citizens and police supervisors.
• Internal Affairs investigations and intelligence-gathering should focus on individuals who act as accomplices to officers in corruption schemes.
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The Commission believes that the implementation of these procedural and policy reforms will considerably strengthen the Department's integrity controls and help insure the public's confidence in the Department's ability to police itself.
No integrity controls, however, will last forever without the demand of the public and the commitment of the Department to insure that they remain effective. We cannot, as we have done too often in the past, place absolute faith in any set of reforms to insure integrity and defeat complacency for the next generation and beyond. Too often, our faith turned out to be blind. Without integrity controls rooted in the Department's own pride and commitment, no set of reforms -- no matter how creative and well devised -- can work. History has taught us that the Department cannot sustain reform efforts without incentive and support from the outside. Thus, an external entity independent of the Department must provide continual monitoring and pressure to insure that the Department makes successful integrity controls a high priority now and in the future. The Department and the public deserve no less.
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Notes:
16. The total number of officers in the study was four hundred thirteen. Fewer officers are sometimes referred to for particular aspects of the study. This is because for certain areas we examined, information on all the officers was not available.
17. The probationary period consists of six months of Police Academy training and twelve months in a field training unit.
18. This procedure requires the Department to confer immunity from criminal prosecution before interrogating officers.
19. New York City Charter and Administrative Code Section 13-206.