Five states that lack the authority to remove a misbehaving cop's license
Five states California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Hawaii - don't have authority to take away a police officer’s certificate or license to continue serving after misconduct, says The American Prospect. In 44 states, a state agency-usually known as a Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST )- trains incoming cops, sets minimum standards that qualify them to serve, and can revoke an officer’s license for serious misbehavior. All local departments do background checks on new hires, but the quality of those investigations can vary wildly, especially when small or financially strapped departments are involved.
Local police chiefs have controlled the hiring and firing of their officers, notes Roger Goldman, leading expert on police-licensing laws, in a 2003 article in the St. Louis University Public Law Review. But in the 1950s, states started treating law enforcement like a profession and took responsibility for training cops and setting minimum standards for entry to the field. In 1960, New Mexico became the first state to authorize the revocation of police officer licenses in cases of serious misconduct. POST can revoke an officer’s license for serious misbehavior. Depending on the state, disqualifiers range from a felony conviction to behaviors that aren’t necessarily criminal, like having sex on the job or lying during an internal affairs investigation.
All local departments do background checks on new hires, but the quality of those investigations can vary wildly, especially when small or financially strapped departments are involved. “A background check is only as good as the person doing it and how deep they want to go,” says Eriks Gabliks, director of Oregon’s POST agency. Thorough background checks can be particularly hard when an applicant has resigned quietly from their previous police job in lieu of a termination or investigation. In those cases, the department they left might not be willing or able to share information about the circumstances.
Even if a background check turns up past rogue behavior, a small department may go ahead anyway. Such agencies usually are in poor communities that can’t afford high salaries, notes Goldman, who has worked for 30 years promoting better policing standards and stronger revocation authority. Given the opportunity to hire a licensed officer who can start immediately and for whom the hiring agency doesn’t need to pay training costs, it may decide to ignore their history.
These factors make the ability to take away an officer’s license or certificate critical to stopping repeat offenders. California has gone the other direction. Until 2003, the state’s POST had the authority to cancel an officer’s certificate if they were found guilty of committing a felony or certain misdemeanors—unlawful sexual behavior, dishonesty associated with their official duties, or theft. But ten years ago, police unions and police chief associations successfully lobbied the legislature and Governor Gray Davis to dramatically narrow the grounds for the POST to cancel a certificate. They did so presumably to wrest back hiring and firing decisions from the state and put it back in the hands of local chiefs and union representatives. (The chief union lobbyist for the bill did not return calls for comment, nor did several other California police unions and chiefs’ associations contacted for this story.)
A former executive director of California’s POST vigorously defends keeping hiring and firing at the local level. Putting the decision in the hands of a statewide body creates divisiveness—local police chiefs and sheriffs need discretion to make firing decisions since they’re the ones who best know their circumstances, says Paul Cappitelli, who served 29 years in the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Even if line officers are represented on a state review panel, “it’s a political process no matter how you shape it,” he says. He also disputes that Atherley and Hickman’s numbers have any relevance to California. The state doesn’t need to cancel certificates, he contends, because its training program and standards for entering the profession are among the best in the country—rogue officers are kept out of the force from the get-go. When Cappitelli was POST director, he says POST directors from other states told him privately that they wished they’d kept the system California has.
http://prospect.org/article/how-keep-bad-cops-beat