fourteenth-report.pdf

Independent Monitoring Team Fourteenth Status Report of the Independent Monitor Delphine Allen, et al., v. City of Oakland, et al. July 31, 2009 to January 13, 2010 Page 23 b. Status of Compliance and Assessment The implementation deadline for this task occurred in October 2004. During the seventh and eighth reporting periods, OPD completed the policies incorporating this Settlement Agreement task and trained its personnel on these policies. These policies are General Order M- 3.1, Informal Complaint Resolution Process; General Order M-3, Complaints Against Departmental Personnel or Procedures; the Internal Affairs Policy and Procedure Manual; and Policy C-2, Communications Division Policy and Procedure Manual. The Department revised these policies during the eleventh reporting period. During the ninth reporting period, the IMT audited OPD’s actual practice compliance with this task. We found that the Department had made important progress with this task and was in compliance with a number of its provisions, but was not yet in full compliance with Task 4. A complete discussion of our audit findings is included in our ninth status report. During the tenth reporting period, several of the compliance standards for this task were lowered from 95% to 85% or 90% and modified to include a more subjective pass/fail assessment. During the twelfth reporting period, we completed an actual practice assessment of eight of the ten distinct requirements of Task 4. We found that OPD had made significant progress since our last review of Task 4 and was in compliance with each of the requirements reviewed. For our assessment, we analyzed a random sample of informally resolved complaints (ICRs) approved by OPD between December 1, 2007, and April 15, 2008. OPD’s policies require that specific information be documented for each ICR. OPD complied with this requirement at a rate of 97%. During our last review, OPD had a compliance rate of 90%. In addition to requiring specific documentation for each ICR, Task 4 requires that the documentation be forwarded to IAD for review and that the documentation include sufficient information for IAD to follow-up on the incident if necessary. We found that every complaint reviewed complied with these requirements. Additionally, in 97% of the cases we reviewed, we were able to confirm that OPD initiated the formal complaint process as required when the ICR process did not resolve the complaint. We were able to determine in 99% of the ICRs we reviewed that OPD personnel did not unduly influence complainants to consent to the informal complaint resolution process. We found OPD in compliance with the requirement that it have a central control system for complaints and Departmental requests to open investigations. The Department also was in compliance with the requirement that every complaint received by any supervisor or commander be reported to IAD on the day of receipt or at the start of the next business day. Based on our review, 87% of the complaints reviewed met this standard. When the IMT previously sought to assess compliance with this provision, we were unable to do so because OPD did not have a reliable system for receiving or tracking complaints received outside IAD by field supervisors or other OPD members and employees. Our review indicated that, with a couple of important exceptions, OPD’s process for forwarding misconduct complaints made in the field to IAD generally is working and continues to improve. This system was designed to, and for the most part does: 1) track complaints that