INTERNAL AFFAIRS
Managing Citizen Complaints & Employee Discipline
Length of Seminar: 3 Days
Instructors: Lou Reiter
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Introduction: Outline of the program; current state of misconduct potential in law enforcement around the country; essential elements of a reasonable Internal Affairs or Professional Standards system; common complaints about police misconduct systems.
Foundation for the system: Importance of firm definitions of what constitutes a complaint and what is misconduct; peculiarities of Conduct Unbecoming allegations.
Gateway to the system: Issues in complaint acceptance; common complaints of public complainant perceived hindrances, hurdles and forms of intimidation; various complaint forms and public notice; successful techniques for complaint acceptance; necessity for a preliminary investigation; supervising and monitoring the process; a viable option for our most common type of complaint.
Administrative issues: Maintenance of files; issues in purging of investigations; confidentiality of records.
Investigative control measures: Standards of care; critical points which affect investigations; when to call in another agency; importance of planning your investigation; evaluating the complaint; organizing your investigation; why you may need to learn current standards; use of a standard case folder system; supervisory control methods for administrative investigations; administrative searches; chemical testing during your investigations; use of polygraph and other tools.
Pro-active administrative enforcement of misconduct: What it is and how to do it; you may being doing it and just don’t know it.
Administrative interviews: Steps before you interview anyone; the necessity to do detailed planning before you act; issues of tape recording; general interview techniques; handling potential problems during interviews; dealing with the accused employee; living successfully under an Officer’s Bill of Rights; understanding and working within Garrity and compelled statements; successful interviews even in the presence of victim and employee representatives.
Code of silence: Is it real and should we acknowledge it; dealing with it in a reasonable manner.
Adjudication: Administrative insight as a foundation for your decisions; rationalizing your adjudication statistics; to publish or not.
Discipline: Creating reasonable and defensible employee discipline; formalize the burden of proof your agency will use; build for an external appea; where discipline charges can come from; using values as a foundation for organizational performance; what the pre-disciplinary hearing is and isn’t; most common defenses to employee discipline; how to handle resignations and retirements in lieu of disciplinary action; developing a contract in lieu of discipline.
Early warning systems: Why such a system is important; precursors which should alert supervisors to potential problem employees; minimal criteria for such a system; examples of up and running systems; benefits and detriments of an early warning system.
Employee involved domestic misconduct: The significant difference between criminal and administrative violations; the need for an administrative policy more expansive than criminal sanctions; agency response to the domestic incident; supervisory support tools for our employees; further employment actions.
Brady & Giglio implications: What are these cases and what affect they have on agency operations; new directions in investigative practices and relationships with prosecutors; protecting yourself and agency from liability; issues of truthfulness and continued employment; investigative approaches.
Pending challenges for police agencies: External review or oversight; what is it and what it isn’t; what causes communities to react; forms of external review currently being used; common elements and problems of up and running external review bodies; the future of police external review; new Federal legislation which can get outsiders inside your agency.
Use of force: Current supervisory and liability issues in the use of force; reporting use of force incidents, making them professional and scientific; importance of a graphic force matrix; why and how a use of force report can help your agency; the role of Internal Affairs in the use of force reporting system.
Emergency provisions: Issues which might give rise to the necessity for using these provisions; essential supervisory tools you need to have in place before you need them; dealing with intoxicated employees; viable options your agency should have available; special considerations when using psychological services.
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