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When cops commit crimes the government sticks it's head in the sand and pretends not to see the crimes.
Watching the Detectives By JOANNA C. SCHWARTZ Published: June 15, 2011 ACCORDING to a report released yesterday by John C. Liu, the New York City comptroller, over the last five years the city has paid more than $500 million in settlements and judgments against the New York Police Department, often involving misconduct claims against individual officers — and that doesn’t include attorneys’ salaries and administrative costs. The number of claims for offenses like false arrest and brutality has surged by 43 percent over the last five years; in 2010, 8,104 claims were filed and $136 million was paid out. Given New York’s yawning budget gap, the city should do all it can to bring such costs under control. Fortunately, there are a few simple reforms that could save the city millions. While New York City pays the Police Department’s skyrocketing legal bills, the department makes almost no effort to learn from lawsuits brought against it and its officers. The department does not track which officers were named, what claims were alleged or what payouts were made in the thousands of suits brought every year. What’s more, officers’ personnel files contain no record of the allegations and results of lawsuits filed against them. Neither the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau nor the Civilian Complaint Review Board investigates allegations made in lawsuits, and police officials review only the litigation files of the few dozen cases each year that result in payments of $250,000 or more. Because the department ignores lawsuits, it cannot analyze or learn from them; instead, the city effectively writes off these suits as the extraordinarily high cost of doing police business. In contrast, a small but growing group of police departments around the country have found innovative ways to analyze information gathered from lawsuits. They investigate lawsuit claims as they would civilian complaints, and they discipline, retrain or fire officers when the claims are substantiated. They look for trends in lawsuits suggesting problem officers, units and practices, and they review the evidence developed in the cases for personnel and policy lessons. In Los Angeles County, for example, the Board of Supervisors requires the Sheriff’s Department to submit a corrective action plan for every case with a payout of over $20,000, including the steps the department will take to avoid similar cases in the future. The New York comptroller’s office has called on the Police Department to monitor lawsuit claims for almost a decade, but the department has refused to act. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has opposed reviewing lawsuit data, noting that settlements may be agreed to for reasons unrelated to the merits of the claims. Mayor Bloomberg has a point: settlements are not necessarily proof of wrongdoing. But if New York truly is interested in reducing the costs of litigation, it should collect and assess lawsuit data regardless of the outcomes. After all, to reduce the costs of suits, one must understand what types of cases are brought and how all payouts — not just payouts in meritorious cases — can be reduced. The City Council should pass a bill that would require the department to provide information about claims and payouts to the council. The city pays the department’s legal bills; the department should show the city what it is paying for. If the department will not review lawsuit claims, the council and independent researchers can analyze the data instead. As an alternative, the city could require the Police Department to settle lawsuits out of its own budget, instead of the city’s general coffers. Perhaps if the department held its own purse strings, it would find more to learn from litigation. Such an approach has already been taken elsewhere in the city government. Almost 10 years ago, the city required the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which operates public hospitals and clinics, to pay legal costs out of its budget. The corporation has subsequently reduced payouts, in part by reviewing past claims and learning from them. Thousands of times each year, New Yorkers sue the police, seeking compensation and justice in court. The Police Department should learn from those lawsuits, reducing the frequency and cost of civil rights violations and freeing up valuable dollars for its libraries, teachers and firefighters. Joanna C. Schwartz is an acting professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles. |