That's what Pitchess is for. To allow unfettered access to personnel records (even just disciplinary records) can result in unnecessary motions and litigation even before matters get to court and unduly muddy the political waters through public disclosure. Such matters can just as easily end a career when they receive undue media coverage, and unrelated accusations and allegations can further muddy criminal cases beyond what they may normally become. I have seen cases revolve around an officer's actions alone, and not at all around the actual actions of the offender. Distraction can be an effective defense tactic. Perhaps if we could trust our employing agencies to support us when we have done nothing wrong, the prospect would be less daunting. But, in today's environment when agencies freely let officers go to make their political lives easier - damn the RIGHT thing to do - trust is at a minimum even from the employees. If the employer had the officers' backs, then, maybe I could support more openness with regards to internal investigations.
Then, of course, there are those internal investigations which are little more than political witch-hunts and overturned (sometimes years later) when the matter goes to court. I know a good many officers whose careers went out the window as a result of politically motivated internal investigations, and eventually won modest settlements against their past employer having the findings of the internal investigation overturned or expunged entirely. But, the damage is most often done by then.
Remember, internal investigations have no checks and balances and are subject to largely subjective whims of the investigator of the finder of fact (i.e. the Chief or his or her designee). Court comes well after the fact, and too often after the career is ruined as a result. Granted, not all investigations are rigged, but, the possibility is there - particularly with citizen review boards who often lack any legal or police experience and act on political motivations rather than objective ones.
Transparency is fine and dandy, but when you are on the receiving end of a politically motivated hit, the "finding" of that investigation can ruin you even if eventually cast aside years later.
In CA we have to report to the CA DOJ the nature and number of investigations, and their conclusions. We also have to inform complaining parties of the general results of the investigation, though specific penalties are not generally permitted.I would agree that in the case of accusations that have not yet been sustained that some greater care in release of that information needs to be considered. I would say the same thing about criminal suspects who have been arrested but never tried, too. But I would still require police departments to keep records of accusations and release the statistics of the number of accusations, the type of misconduct alleged, and how many of those allegations were sustained to help the public get a sense of how well the system might be working. I would also prohibit confidential civil settlements by the government, too. If the government is going to pay out thousands or millions of dollars for misconduct, the public has a right to know the details of that.
It is also not that difficult to discover the results of civil payouts ... at least out here. But, with something like 9 in 10 claims that are paid being paid as a result of an out of court settlement without admission of guilt, it can be hard to determine if the payout is an act of contrition or a cost of doing business. Cities regularly settle to avoid litigation even if they might ultimately prevail. Pay now, save the cost of litigation and two or three years of negative headlines.
I don't know that there are too many confidential payments out here ... I honestly haven't found too many where the terms are entirely undisclosed or unable to be uncovered. Public records laws tend to allow that info to pop up somewhere and many news agencies tend to find it, anyway. But, I am not at all opposed to open records of settlements. Since fiscal responsibility is covered under our CPRA and Brown Act regs., I don't know that the info could be entirely concealed out here anyway.
I've heard many strange things. But, if you can't trust the process, you have to be skeptical. As I mentioned previously, in some agencies internal investigations can be politically motivated. I know of a couple that I was involved in first hand. One career was ruined as a result, even though she reached an out of court settlement in the end and a court ruled ruled in her favor on the matter of her punishment.I've heard police unions give lip service to that exact sentiment, but then when it comes time to implement procedures to actually hold bad cops accountable, what happens? Almost invariably the police unions are adamantly opposed to those efforts. So forgive me if I take that sentiment with a bit of a grain of salt.
As I said, I don't know any officers that want to work with criminals. Officers who violate internal policies, those can vary. Not every act of malfeasance supports termination, and often when a union complains about an investigation it is because they see that the process is unfair in some way. Remember, the union acts as the defense bar for the officer - they are legally bound to advocate for the officer. Sometimes that means they might have to hold their nose as a collective organization, even if the individuals within it silently hope that the officer's penalties are upheld.
If the process was systemically honest and not subject to political bias and subjective interpretation, I might agree with you. As I said, I have seen careers ruined because of unfair accusations (from inside and out) and biased investigations. In most agencies, I believe the process is objective and largely fair. But, the ultimate decision belongs to a political appointee or elected representative (police chief or sheriff) and can reflect a political expediency rather than objective fairness. To freely release info that can be untrue and unduly harmful serves little purpose other than to humiliate or inflict harm on a particular officer.That’s not good enough. That helps a litigant, but it worthless to the general public in getting information to determine how well their government is functioning. You need access to ALL the misconduct records, not just piecemeal access that might drip out to the press in the course of litigation, to do that.
So I have heard.You probably made the right choice. I used to live the Philadelphia area. The amount of state and local government corruption, including the cops, the courts, the highway departments, and pretty much any other government official was truly disturbing.
It is a sad statement that those areas that have been historically corrupt have done so little to affect positive change in the long run. That is a failing from above and below, I'll grant you. I am all for open government in most all its forms, but, I have to draw the line at the release of individual personnel info that can be subjective and political in nature, and that often lacks any truly objective due process or arbitration. It can be a quite oppressive thing to face politically motivated accusations and find yourself fighting for your career knowing that if you lose, you lose everything. Adding the public release of those accusations or initial findings, that would be simply traumatic and serve no practical purpose.While I was there a major scandal unfolded that resulted in a number of Philadelphia municipal and state court judges being convicted in federal court for corruption related to taking bribes from Philadelphia area unions to get their members off on charges they faced. I would like to say I was shocked by that, but in Philly that wasn’t surprising; government corruption, unions, and organized crime all seemed to go hand-in-hand. And I have no reason to believe it is any better today than it was back when I was there. Government in NJ and NY were in much the same boat. And it is corruption like that, also found in places in the south, that lead a lot of people to be suspicious of cops and tend to think they are all corrupt and cannot be trusted. And the way to help combat that problem starts with shining a bright light on the activities of the cops so that the public can hold them accountable. Keeping everything in the dark allows the mold of corruption to grow and thrive.
Summaries of the nature of complaints and their conclusions, even a range of penalties set down, sure - all for that! Individual personnel records, no.

