Of the 130 cases we analyzed, only 17 (13.1 percent) had a penalty reported against the officer involved. The actual penalties are listed in Table 3. A total of five officers lost their jobs, six were either reassigned to desk duty or suspended with pay, four were suspended from duty without pay for 10 to 60 days, and only two officers were charged with criminal offenses.
The percentage of these cases with officers being punished is a bit higher than the comparable percentages reported by several departments cited in the newspaper accounts. This may be because incidents reported in the newspapers probably of a more serious nature. For example, in Long Island, New York, out of 600 complaints of excessive force over a four year period (1987-1990), only nine of the complaints (1.5 percent) resulted in any punishment. In these cases the most severe penalties involved officers losing a few days pay or some accrued time. In 31 years, only one officer has been fired for the use of excessive force on Long Island (Tayler and Bessent, 1991). Similarly, the Chicago Tribune reported that in 1989-1990, there were 15,596 citizen complaints filed against the city of Chicago Police Department, with only 329 (2.1 percent) upheld. Many of these cases resulted in a suspension of less than 30 days. Additionally, the Justice Department reported that of 48,000 complaints against officers over the past six years, only 2 percent resulted in charges against the officer involved (Jackson, 1991). In complaints where black citizens are involved, there seems to be an even greater likelihood that the officers will not be punished. In a study of 4,400 complaints from 1987 through mid 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that only 8.4 percent of the complaints were substantiated. The study indicated that black citizens who filed complaints against white officers had the worst chance of substantiation, with only 4 percent of these complaints found to be valid by Internal Affairs investigations. Black citizens in the city of Los Angeles comprise only 13 percent of the city population, but account for 41 percent of the official complaints against officers (Rohrlich and Merina,1991).
Several reasons have been proposed for the few penalties given to police officers because of malpractice: the lack of credible witnesses and victims; the tendency for jurors not to convict officers; and the need to maintain a working relationship between the District Attorney’s office and the police department. In a trial, the defense attorneys for the accused officers have access to school, work, medical, and arrest records of complainants and victims. However, personal information concerning the officers is not obtainable (Tayler, 1991). If the victim has a long criminal history, the jury may not find the testimony credible. Jurors are reluctant to convict officers who are charged in brutality cases. In one of the cases analyzed in this study two officers admitted on the stand that they had beaten a car theft suspect, and that something inside of them had "just snapped." The officers were found not guilty (Freed, 1991).
Table 3. Summary of Penalties
Before a complaint can ever be considered for prosecution, the complaint must first be filed with an agency. While some departments have outside agencies that also take complaints, in most cases the complaint must be filed directly with the police department the victim is complaining against. According to the Hartford Courant, when a complainant first enters the station to file a complaint against the Hartford Police Department, he or she is first told that they could be arrested for filing a false police report (Barger and Thibault, 1991). Further, in a sworn testimony given by Robert Sobel, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff Sergeant, Sobel stated that he had "shortstopped" citizen complaints against those under his command to protect them. Sobel called the complainants and gave them the impression that their complaint was being thoroughly investigated (Merina, 1991).
In his public testimony, Cawley gave an example of how the "Us vs. Them" mentality works in a real-life situation. He explained, in his experience, the treatment a civilian would receive at the precinct if he attempted to report an officer's brutality:
He [the Desk Officer] would give [the complainant] the paperwork to fill out. Then they'd ask him for a pen. He'd tell you listen there's a bodega across the street, go there and buy it. I'm not helping you. Then if they needed any help with [the complaint form], he wouldn't help them. Then if the person went through all the aggravation to fill out the complaint report ... they'd tell you, 'Listen, we have to get it typed now. There's a waiting line for the typing. It's going to be about three hours, so sit right there and wait.' Half the time people would say, 'Three hours, you got to be crazy', and they would leave. As soon as they left, he'd crumple it up and throw it right in the garbage. (Tr. 130)
-- The City of New York: Commission Report: Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department, by Milton Mollen
In a review of practices within the Oakland, California, police department, Skolnick and Bayley (1986) have discussed problems associated with departmental investigation of officers. James Chanin, an attorney who advises citizens on the filing of brutality complaints, says that he never advises clients to seek redress through Internal Affairs: "If someone comes in with black and blue marks and says this officer beat me, they will not seriously entertain the notion that the officer could have done it -- or even if they do, there’s no set of circumstances where they’ll find the complaint substantiated" (quoted in Skolnick and Bayley: 157).