San Jose police auditor merits community support
Twenty-four years ago I had lunch with Teresa GuerreroDaley, who was in her first year as head of the San Jose Independent Police Auditor. As a criminal justice professor specializing in oversight of the police, I was eager to learn about this new agency.
I have never forgotten that lunch.
Before we finished our entrees I realized that the IPA represented something very new and promising in the field of police accountability. I peppered her with questions. What does the IPA do? What are your immediate goals? How does this impact the quality of policing in San Jose? She patiently described the challenge of getting the IPA up and running and her response to the policing issues she encountered.
Very quickly I realized that the police auditor approach was an important alternative to the then-standard form of citizen oversight of the police: the citizen complaint review board. Review boards review individual citizen complaints against police officers and make recommendations to the police chief for disposition (sustained, not sustained, exonerated or unfounded). This approach, however, leaves unaddressed the reasons why there was a complaint in the first place.
Policing experts today now understand that officer misconduct is not primarily the fault of a few “bad” officers. Rather, it is the fault of police organizations that fail to provide guidance to their officers with state- of-the-art policies on use of force and other critical incidents; fail to adequately train their officers; fail to properly supervise their officers in the field, in large part because they fail to train sergeants on their responsibilities. Police auditors address these organizational shortcomings. Audits of citizen complaints can identify inadequate policies on use of force, traffic stops and other police actions. They also can identify training shortcomings and improper supervision by sergeants.
Writing as a national expert on citizen oversight of the police, and the author of the only comprehensive book on the subject, I can report that the San Jose IPA, Aaron Zisser, is fulfilling the promise of police auditing, and stands among the top agencies in the field.
The IPA’s 2017 year- end re- port provides a number of examples of how the IPA works to improve the quality of policing in San Jose. Here are just a few:
In 2016 the IPA recommended a change in the classification of officer use of force incidents for purposes of internal investigations; in 2017 the San Jose Police Department adopted this recommendation. The IPA alsomade three recommendations regarding SJPD response to mental health-related calls for service, and by 2017 the SJPD had adopted all three.
In short, there was a constructive dialogue between the IPA and the SJPD over police policy issues. This does not occur in most cities, where policy debates typically degenerate into uninformed public arguments and no real progress. The San Jose community should be proud of this accom- plishment.
Over the past few months the current IPA director has come under attack, primarily from the police union, which is calling for his resignation. To be blunt, the specific charges leveled by the union are not major issues that would merit termination. They raise the suspicion that what the union really wants is no effective oversight of the SJPD at all. It would be a great tragedy is these unwarranted allegations were allowed to cripple the effectiveness of the IPA, with its national reputation for steady and meaningful work.