Survey: Most California Policing Agencies Resist Citizen Inquiries

In preparing "Audit Report 2007: Public Access to Law Enforcement Information," CalAware sent 65 employees and volunteers from 31 newspaper and broadcast news organizations, posing as ordinary citizens, to visit 184 police and sheriff's departments and 32 California Highway Patrol area offices in 34 of California's 58 counties, from San Diego to Siskiyou.

The auditors asked to see information about recent burglaries, armed robberies and sexual assaults and any related arrests, as well as copies of the senior officer's employment contract and legally required disclosure of investments, property owned and other financial interests.

They also left a letter asking for information about the department's share of drug crime forfeiture proceeds, any recent deaths of persons in custody, statistical summaries of complaints against officers, and officers' actual earnings, workers' compensation claims showing how injuries on the job occurred, and approved outside employment. No names were asked.

The resulting report (with agency-by agency details and overall analysis and conclusion at http://www.calaware.org) uses a point scoring system and letter grade assignment that takes into account both legal requirements of the California Public Records Act and CalAware's estimate of best public information practices.

The ideal A+ performance would have involved providing crime and arrest information plus the top officer's statement of financial interests within three days of the visit, plus notification within 10 days that most of the other information would be made available, and when, and with no demands for the requester's identity, affiliation or purpose or completion of a form, and without sending the auditor elsewhere for any information.

But the average grade statewide was an F+, since most agencies did not provide most information sought, or responded unlawfully late, or sent the auditors elsewhere, or demanded ID information, or showed some combination of these reactions.

CalAware President Richard McKee stated that "law enforcement, city and county leaders should expect far better from their public records and information officers, beginning with a stern reminder of whom they work for and the reason why the law demands they make public information public."

http://www.calaware.org/news/weekly_detail.php?article_id=1462