July 11, 2003
Council Changes Rules For Citizen Police Review, Community Policing's Poor Scores, And Judging Kroeker
Time for a quick round-up of recent stories related to the Portland Police Bureau. Each of these normally would have received their own posts, but I'm playing catch-up after the past couple days of work.
First, the City Council adopted new rules for membership on the Citizen Review Committee:
The Portland City Council on Wednesday approved an emergency ordinance that outlines how new members will be appointed to the Citizens Review Committee, a panel that reviews complaints against police.
with the way committee members wanted to fill vacancies, another example of an emerging struggle among the committee, the city auditor and the director of the Independent Police Review Division.
At least according to this Oregonian article, Council members don't seem particularly pleased with the tensions between members of the Committee and the City Auditor's office:
"If we're fighting over this, this isn't a good sign," Commissioner Jim Francesconi said.
Commissioner Randy Leonard characterized the debate as a "horrible waste of energy," and Commissioner Dan Saltzman said he "didn't appreciate the constant skirmishing."
Of course, these tensions might be lessened somewhat if the Committee actually had some degree of real authority, and had a scope which was expanded to include some of the more controversial elements of community/police relations.
As for this particular matter -- how members of the Committee are appointed -- I'm a little baffled at why there's such a problem:
Previous reappointments were done by a selection committee made up of the auditor, a county judge, a county commissioner and a former member of the review committee.
Under the emergency ordinance, the auditor would appoint a committee of six to nominate people to vacancies. The six would include three review committee representatives (either past members or those not seeking reappointment at the end of a two-year term), two community members and the director of the Independent Police Review Division.
Then, the review division director, a review committee representative and a third member of that group would interview the nominees, and the city auditor would recommend names to the City Council for appointment.
Some critics of the system appear to want sitting Committee members to be able to nominate potential appointees, which makes little sense to me. As far as I know, sitting members of one body or another don't generally get to choose their new members.
Meanwhile, in related news, the 2003 Portland Police Bureau Community Assessment Survey (pdf) is out, and The Oregonian led with the community policing angle:
A random survey of 650 city residents gave low marks to the Portland Police Bureau's community policing performance, the second critical report this year on police-community relations.
The "2003 Community Assessment Survey," conducted by researcher John H. Campbell for the bureau, shows that citizens' ratings for seven of 10 benchmarks of community policing have not improved since the last survey done three years ago.
Police Chief Mark Kroeker, in a presentation to the City Council on Wednesday, at first praised the report as a valuable measure of community policing in Portland, drawing attention to some positive findings.
But when City Commissioner Jim Francesconi pointed out that most of the study shows no significant strides in community policing, the chief backpedaled and said the study did not examine all relevant gauges.
And:
For the first time, residents were also asked whether the police bureau takes appropriate steps to prevent officer misconduct. It received the lowest rating in the study: a 2.9 out of 5, with 1 being poor and 5 excellent.
The survey -- respondents "rated how police respond to emergencies, understand community concerns, provide crime prevention advice, help people improve their safety, show citizens how to work together to make neighborhoods safer, involve the community in crime-fighting and work with citizens to solve problems" -- reportedly shows a drop in "seven of 10 indicators" from the 2000 survey.
As the article points out, the City Club of Portland recently released a gloomy study on Portland's community policing efforts, putting the blame on its failings firmly on Chief Kroeker's shoulders.
And as a footnote, speaking of judging Kroeker's own performance, this week's Willamette Week graded the Chief based upon the Chief's own criteria: "The rank and file, the community, special-interest groups, various ethnic groups, the elected people, the news media."