During the campaign for sheriff, I provided a vision for 21st century law enforcement for Lake County that included a citizen’s oversight committee. Now elected, I want to begin steps toward filling this promise.

My vision for 21st century law enforcement includes effective organization, highly trained staff, effective budget controls, modern equipment and issue-appropriate policies.

Operating goals include lowered response times, effective investigations, lowered drug and gang related crimes, interagency cooperation, increased protection for schools, emergency preparedness, sensitivity toward citizen needs, a modern jail and protection for community values (lake ecology, etc.).

Because much of a law enforcement organization is technical in nature, I believe a combination of civilian and professional involvement in shaping this vision is a key to its success.

The process would include establishing a county ordinance forming a special committee comprised of elected officials, county professionals, law enforcement professionals and citizens.

The committee would review, recommend and report on the sheriff’s advancement toward the goals established and thereby provide quality assurance to the public. The ordinance is needed to maintain the committee’s existence in future sheriff’s administrations.

Assumptions

The first assumption of an elected office is that the elected official has quality control (QC) over the labors of his/her office and secondly, the voting public has the say whether their minimum standards are met (ultimate QC).

Quality assurance (QA) as used in this case is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of focus areas of a Sheriff’s administration to maximize the possibility that minimum standards are being attained by the law enforcement process, progress toward improvement is maintained and the public is informed.

Special type of elected office – rationale

The only law enforcement agency that is directly subject to the voting process is a county sheriff. City police, highway patrol, wardens, marshals, FBI, etc, are all part of a larger government controlling agency and often have specific focus areas of service.

The sheriff’s office operates in generally unincorporated areas, over broad enforcement subjects that encompasses all of the specific areas of law enforcement handled by the other agencies, e.g., drug enforcement, domestic disputes, robbery, burglary, homicide and traffic.

It is unique, however, in that it also incorporates the duties, functions and responsibilities of the coroner, director of corrections and jail operations, director of court security, and director of the Office of Emergency Services (OES). The exceptional breadth of the office and the unique elected control by the public argues for public involvement in gauging the success of the service between elections.

Unfortunately, the necessarily confidential nature of law enforcement makes the dissemination of accurate information difficult and sometimes left to rumor and perhaps perceptions of law enforcement misconduct.

Oversight – concept

Citizen oversight of law enforcement is a process that reached an elevated degree of interest following the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles.

The CHP convened a task force on the use of force in April 1991 to evaluate department policies and procedures as they relate to the use of force.

A citizen’s ad hoc committee comprising of citizens not associated with the department was formed to conduct an independent review of the findings.

After this review was complete, the committee was later broadened to the citizens standing committee to review citizen’s complaint investigation procedures, equal opportunity issues, supervisory and management practices, selection, hiring and personnel procedures.

Basically this committee serves to provide consistent pressure for improvements in agency policies and practice by providing recommendations and public information in the form of reports.

The CHP model is not the norm for the bulk of citizen oversight committee in large cities. Many oversight committees directly review the case information of complaining citizens and provide specific recommendations on changes or improvements.

The negative side of reviewing independent complaints is a focus on only the negative side of law enforcement and creates negative staff morale because of the non-professional layperson investigations and external imposition of discipline.

In some cities this may be a necessary approach But for the broad based interest of the county voting public and the specific stakeholders in high risk areas such as businesses and protected groups this degree of specificity is not needed or warranted.

A model is needed that serves the specific needs of Lake County, is not intrusive on the day to day operations of the sheriff’s office and is guided by accepted standards in the law enforcement community.

Model – concept

The model being suggested here is the establishment of a combined group of approximately seven members of the general public, law enforcement professionals and government oversight professionals (e.g., county district attorney, county administrative officer, Board of Supervisors member) that would report directly to the Board of Supervisors.

This group would be self directed under guidance from the BOS and develop an agenda of interest areas for review. Potential areas would be effectiveness of budget controls, risk management, focus of personnel on problem areas (drugs, gangs, child and elder abuse, etc.), and attention to special areas of interest such as school protection, response times, jail security, conditions and maintenance, tribal relations or lake protection. All policies, procedures and budget control items would be fair game.

The committee would be basically looking to improve self-sanctioning, self-regulating, controlling mechanisms of the sheriff's office and provide an over-the-shoulder performance review of the elected sheriff with a report out to the Board of Supervisors and public.

As a gauge of progress and a target for both the committee and department, an established approach is preferred. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) was developed to address what was seen as a need to enhance law enforcement as a profession and increase its effectiveness.

Adopting a CALEA path to accreditation (accreditation is a professional goal of mine for the sheriff’s office) would provide the committee an established set of performance guidelines to gauge the sheriff’s office progress toward 21st century law enforcement.

CALEA

The accreditation process requires an agency to develop a comprehensive, well thought out, uniform set of written directives.

The CALEA standards provide the analysis that a CEO needs to make fact-based, informed management decisions.

The accreditation requires a preparedness program for natural or human caused unusual occurrences, improving the agencies relationship with the community, and establishing standards of conduct, authority, performance and responsibility.

CALEA accreditation can limit an agency’s liability and risk exposure because it demonstrates an attainment of internationally recognized standards for law enforcement. CALEA has been attained by sheriff’s departments elsewhere and attainment is ultimately verified by a team of independent outside CALEA-trained assessors.

Quality assurance – first step

The ultimate test of any adopted model is its ease of use, cost in money and time and effectiveness in delivering a useable product.

The development of an exploratory group to review the options and report to the Board of Supervisors is recommended as a beginning of a quality assurance program for our sheriff’s office.

This volunteer group can provide the transparency and needed independence from the sheriff’s office to promote public confidence in our law enforcement.

Frank Rivero is sheriff of Lake County, Calif.