Audit criticizes record keeping by county police

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Inadequate record keeping by Allegheny County Police makes it difficult to gauge the department’s effectiveness, according to an audit released Thursday by county Controller Chelsa Wagner.

Auditors discovered that the department’s internal record keeping was inconsistent and incomplete — and that records had been kept on paper until 2016, when the department finally switched to an electronic system.

That switch should help to standardize the police department’s record keeping in the future, according the the audit, which suggested the department should work to more quickly adopt new technology going forward.

The audit noted that the department does not track how often it assists other local agencies with cases, making it impossible to determine whether some municipalities are using more than their fair share of county resources. The audit looked at the department’s operations between 2013 and 2016.

“County taxpayers are paying almost $30 million annually for a police force that is trained, equipped and prepared to improve the safety of all of our communities, but that doesn’t have a clearly defined role in a fragmented, multilayered system of law enforcement,” Ms. Wagner said in a statement Thursday.

The audit also criticized the county police department’s lack of racial and gender diversity. Of the department’s 212 officers, seven are African-American and 14 are women, police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said Thursday. Census data from 2015 shows