UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS REPORT ON POLICE REFORM AND RACIAL JUSTICE

Transparency and Accountability to Reinforce Constitutional Policing

True police reform will not come about through improved policies and training alone. We must ensure that police fulfill their commitments to protect the residents they serve and that police build trust and legitimacy through transparency, engagement, and accountability.

Police must play a role that reinforces democratic principles in our society. To ensure public awareness and reassure the public that officers are working to protect the community, departments should make their policies publicly available and, consistent with relevant laws and agreements, provide access to law enforcement data and findings of officer misconduct.

Technology that can enhance accountability—such as body cameras and early warning systems—should be utilized. Cities should adopt uniform policies for the prompt release of video, audio, and initial police reports on all matters of public interest, including specifically those arising from police-involved shootings, deaths in custody, or allegations of First Amendment violations.

The collective bargaining agreements between cities and their police departments should provide fair, sensible, and workable accountability mechanisms and eliminate any provisions that are roadblocks to addressing conduct that is inconsistent with the policies and laws that govern our officers.

Police unions must engage with good will as well and participate in these urgent reforms, work with cities as partners—not obstructionists—on accountability and transparency and other reforms so that we can create stronger police departments that are truly responsive to the needs of residents and establish better police-community relations that serve both communities and officers. Cities should also work to eliminate any state laws that impede the implementation of sensible accountability measures across police departments.

Transparency and more robust accountability mechanisms are necessary to improve police-community relations.

A strong relationship between police and the communities they serve depends on transparency and accountability. This section of our Report discusses a range of tools and issues that bear on those principles. It starts with department policies to bolster transparency and accountability, and also to provide appropriate support to the officers we ask to serve our cities. We also discuss the role that collective bargaining agreements with police unions should play in ensuring fair and efficient systems for officer accountability, and describe where those agreements, and some state laws, currently fall short. Finally, we discuss the role that state institutions that certify officers can play in building up a professional police force and ensuring officers are accountable to professional standards.

Department Policies

We are committed to rebuilding and strengthening the trust between communities and law enforcement. By putting policies in place that insist on transparency and elevate standards of accountability, and by taking the basic step of making those policies publicly available online, we believe that trust can be won again. Communities need to believe that misconduct will be investigated in a fair, just, and timely manner. Officers need to have trust that their conduct will be reviewed impartially and that any discipline that may result will be fair and proportional to any misconduct.

Policies to Ensure Transparency and Accountability

  1. Officer Accountability to the Public

The public must trust that officers who act inconsistently with law and policy will be held accountable. Departments should not erect unnecessary barriers to citizen complaints but should implement controls to weed out frivolous or unfounded complaints.

The process for submitting complaints should be simple, easy to understand, and available in all languages spoken in the area. The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C., for example, provides complaint forms in nine languages and in an audio format.[66]  Departments should also allow witnesses—not just victims—to submit complaints. They should permit anonymous complaints, and not require that complaints be submitted in-person at a police station.[67]  Departments can assess the validity of such complaints but should not create barriers to receiving them in the first instance.

Investigations of complaints should follow clear, publicly posted procedures that dictate how the scope of an investigation is determined, who will conduct the investigation, and the rights of any involved parties. Investigation of some incidents—for example, those that involve a use of force resulting in death, an officer-involved shooting resulting in injury or death, or any in-custody death—may be best assigned to an independent third party.[68]  Investigation of legitimate complaints should not be cut short because a complainant stops cooperating or an officer separates from the department.

Disciplinary policies must be fair. Departments should clearly and publicly state their expectations for officer conduct in an investigation. Disciplinary procedures should be clear and comprehensible. In general, police chiefs should be responsible for ultimately deciding whether to impose discipline.

Departments should engage regularly with the public to understand community needs and the community’s assessment of law enforcement conduct and priorities. Data about disciplinary decisions—including the number of verifiable complaints, the number of investigations mounted against officers, and information about investigation outcomes—should be made readily available to the public.[69]

  1. Supervisor Responsibilities

Supervisors serve as the primary line of sight into officer conduct, so they play a key role in keeping the promise of accountability. Their selection and training must reflect the full range of responsibilities for the position, including their role in ensuring accountability. Supervisors should be set up for success in order to reinforce the department’s priorities and high standards. Departments should clearly delineate their expectations of supervisors and hold accountable supervisors who fail to monitor their subordinates or take action when they do not live up to their commitments.

Supervisors should monitor officers through daily physical observations, review of officer-generated reports, and reference to broader, department data to detect and intervene in bias-based policing practices and/or inconsistency with department policies. As part of that effort, supervisors should be hands on with supervisees, and regularly review footage of stops, searches, arrests, and use-of-force incidents to ensure that officer accounts are consistent with the record, to detect any indication of bias, and to evaluate officer performance.[70]  Supervisors should actively respond to the scene of incidents involving more than a minimal use of force by an officer.

After any critical event, supervisors should intervene to support officers whose behavior or conduct indicates they are experiencing high levels of stress or a potential mental health issue.

  1. Body-Worn Cameras

Police departments should use body-worn cameras if not already doing so. Policies and trainings should provide clear, easy-to-understand directions for how to use body-worn cameras and when they must be activated.

Departments should create clear protocols for the use of body-worn camera footage in officer investigations, and for the review and release of that footage to the public, consistent with applicable public records retention and disclosure laws. The time period for disclosure should be set in advance, by policy. Ideally, disclosure is automatic in the case of officer-involved shootings (provided no privacy concerns are implicated). Policies should clearly prohibit any alteration of footage by department personnel.

Finally, departments should implement an audit function to monitor the use of body-worn cameras and ensure adherence to department policies. For instance, the Maplewood, Minnesota Police Department encourages supervisors to randomly review body-worn camera recordings at least two times per month to ensure that the equipment is operating properly and that officers are using the devices consistent with department policy.

Policies to Enhance Officer Wellness

The officers who protect our communities must also be protected themselves against incapacitating physical, mental, and emotional health problems.[71]  Police officers have an outsize risk of adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Officer wellness directly affects quality of life, job performance, and interactions with community members.[72]  Because officers are exposed to a wide range of stressors as part of their daily routines, mental and physical health check-ups should be conducted on an ongoing basis.[73]

Departments should aim to normalize wellness services and seek to remove any stigma from seeking mental health care by establishing wellness-related training that engages new officers early on in their careers; tailoring trainings to the unique needs of each department and staff by conducting surveys and regularly updating educational programming; making resources widely visible within the organization; and publicizing a clear confidentiality policy for wellness service providers.[74]  A good example is what the San Diego Police Department has done in creating a free-standing Wellness Unit that is a resource for department members who are or may be in need.[75]

Supervisors should be trained to recognize warning signs, including changes in officer behavior. Departments should also implement an early-intervention system, with the input of the officers it will serve. Such systems are aimed at identifying at-risk officers based on risk indicators, such as use of force incidents, shooting incidents, resisting arrest cases, arrested subject injuries, and officer injury reports.

Departments should make clear that the role of such an early-warning system is not a disciplinary role but a helpful tool to protect officer wellness. With that in mind, officers who reach certain risk indicator thresholds should be addressed by the department’s human resources function and provided access to available resources. Smaller departments, which may not have the resources to implement an early-warning database, should institute policies to track officer performance and spot red flags.

Collective Bargaining Agreements

Introduction

Over the years, police contracts—union CBAs—have evolved into much more than standard labor contracts. They cover the expected areas—hours, wages, benefits—but many have grown to include substantial barriers to basic accountability. We want to make sure that our officers have due process rights, but CBAs often contain provisions that go far beyond what is necessary to protect those rights.

Some provisions look innocuous on their face, but they can severely impair a department’s legitimate need to investigate allegations of police officer misconduct and hold officers accountable. In negotiating and approving CBAs, it is important for cities to restore the balance so that police chiefs and supervisors have the authority necessary to enforce department policies and remove wrongdoers when necessary.

The goal of this section of our Report is to help mayors and police chiefs assess whether certain CBA provisions in their jurisdictions are obstacles to achieving the right balance, and encourage cities not to bargain away management rights as a trade-off for raises sought by police unions. Below are some examples of the provisions that have proven to be problematic for many mayors and police chiefs.

Arbitration Issues

Perhaps the greatest concern about CBAs and officer accountability involves the arbitration process that often follows a department’s decision on how to resolve a review of an officer’s conduct. There are two significant problems with the arbitration process.

First, CBAs typically contain mandatory arbitration provisions that place disciplinary decisions in the hands of non-democratically selected arbitration panels. These panels have the power to overturn and dilute decisions by police department leadership on accountability. They make it difficult if not impossible for a police chief to uphold high standards and department policy. Private sector employers have both the responsibility and the authority to maintain good order and discipline. Police chiefs need to have the same alignment of responsibility and authority.

Second, and most importantly, an arbitrator can be put out of business if he takes a position that the police union does not like. Arbitrators (or, in the case of three-person panels, the “neutral arbitrator”) must be approved by both the department and the union, but arbitrators in police discipline cases frequently handle only those cases, so their livelihood depends on being acceptable to the union.[76]  It is the experience of many chiefs that arbitration panels frequently return serious and repeat offenders to duty. This is a key reason that it is so hard to discipline and remove errant officers.

Barriers to Misconduct Investigations

CBAs can inhibit the ability to detect potential wrongdoing in the first instance. Examples of provisions that create unnecessary obstacles to filing complaints include:

Prohibitions on initiating investigations into alleged misconduct because the initial complaint is anonymous (e.g., information or a video from a bystander);

Requiring complainants to be the alleged victim—as opposed to a third-party witness—and to provide sworn statements under penalty of perjury; and

Severely limiting the amount of time in which a complaint can be filed.

While frivolous complaints are a concern, these contract provisions may allow a police officer to escape even the initiation of an investigation of alleged serious misconduct simply because a complainant is unwilling to be identified.   Indeed, it may be surmised that the more serious the misconduct, the more reluctant a witness may be to step forward because of fears of retaliation. And, by prohibiting complaints initiated by a third-party witness, these provisions would even eliminate the use of videos that bystanders take of events, like those in the George Floyd killing.

While it is always best to obtain evidence when witnesses’ recollections are fresh, departments must be allowed to collect and review all complaints in order to recognize and correct patterns of problematic behavior.

Delaying Investigations

Some CBA provisions delay investigations by including lengthy “recovery” and “cooling off” periods before an officer can be questioned. While “recovery” or “cooling off” periods for officers after an incident may be warranted before interrogating officers, the length of time allowed should not be so long as to diminish fresh memories or otherwise detract from a timely and thorough review.

Ending Investigations Prematurely

Certain CBAs require investigations to end after as little as 90 days if they are not resolved, but the goal of thoroughly and fairly reviewing allegations should not be hindered by arbitrary deadlines that do not account for potentially complex investigations or other departmental priorities.

Giving Officers Special Access to Information

CBAs often require investigators to disclose to officers written documents, witness statements, photos, and other evidence before the officer is questioned or provides a written statement. This is an advantage not afforded civilians in routine police investigations. It allows officers to tailor their testimony to what is known instead of just giving their best recollection.

Purging Records of Misconduct

Some CBAs require disciplinary records to be destroyed after a certain period of time, even if the investigations resulted in a suspension or more serious discipline. In some cases, records are purged after as little as six months, although the allegations were substantiated. In some instances, CBA record destruction mandates conflict with local or state laws that call for mandatory record retention.

There is a balance to be struck on the maintenance and use of officers’ records. We support maintaining officer records as a matter of retention and documentation. In some cases, it may also be appropriate to review an officer’s records for prior misconduct allegations and disciplinary actions to determine whether there is a pattern or practice bearing on the incident at issue. This is not the same as saying that all prior complaints and findings of policy violations including those from the distant past deserve equal or any weight at all in evaluating an officer’s recent conduct, especially where his or her record is otherwise unblemished. But they should not be purged as if they never existed.

Expeditious Review

No one’s interests—not a complainant’s, an involved officer’s, the department’s, or the municipality’s—are served when allegations of misconduct linger over a period of years without resolution. To expedite resolution, departments should be permitted to conduct their investigations concurrently with any other external reviews, including those conducted by civilian review boards or criminal prosecutors.

Finally, if the authority to discipline in serious cases rests with an outside, perhaps civilian, authority, every effort should be made by that body to render a final determination as expeditiously as possible.

Duty to Cooperate

Last, while much of what we discuss here suggests removing certain provisions from CBAs or other agreements, we offer a suggested addition. All CBAs should include a duty to cooperate with misconduct investigations. Any failure to cooperate with reviews by the department or external investigative agencies should result in an officer’s immediate termination.

State Law

The collective bargaining process described above is conducted under authority of and subject to state law. State law determines whether police officers may collectively bargain with their departments and what the scope of those negotiations will be, including whether and to what extent officer investigation and discipline procedures are included in negotiations.

Some states also have statutes that preordain certain procedures that departments must follow, removing those provisions from the bargaining table and, in some cases, codifying in state law the types of restrictions on efficient and responsible officer accountability seen in some CBAs.

This section analyzes the impact of (a) these so-called “Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights” and (b) state efforts to return to management some degree of authority to craft those disciplinary procedures. We believe that departments, at the very least, must be able to establish investigation and discipline procedures through collective bargaining and so recommend that state law provisions that undermine that alignment of responsibility and authority be repealed.

State Laws Impact Collective Bargaining 

A significant majority of states grant police officers a right to bargain collectively through their unions.[77]  State statutes regulating collective bargaining typically allow public employees, including police officers, to negotiate on any “matters of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.”[78]  The phrase “conditions of employment” often serves as a catchall, and most states with collective bargaining allow negotiations over the procedures that will govern investigations of officers and the procedures that will be used in disciplinary proceedings.

State Laws That May Undermine Accountability 

Beyond laws establishing the scope of collective bargaining for police officers, some states have specific statutes that mandate certain procedural protections for officers under investigation and subject to discipline. In some cases, those provisions are reasonable, common sense requirements that do not unduly interfere with a department’s interest in holding officers to account, such as requirements for where and at what time of day officers under investigation may be interrogated.[79]

Other state law provisions, however, impose on departments the same types of restrictive officer investigation and discipline procedures that may otherwise result from the collective bargaining process (as discussed above).[80]  But they also strip departments of the ability to bargain to retain the rights they need to enforce their policies. Such provisions undermine the ability of departments to hold officers accountable and to be appropriately transparent with the public about such actions. And as long as they are in place, there is no way around them—unlike CBA provisions that may be revisited during subsequent negotiations. Disciplinary provisions mandated by state law tie a department’s hands by eliminating the possibility that the collective bargaining process could lead to a better outcome.

State Laws May Limit or Eliminate Discipline from Negotiation 

In addition to the handful of states where collective bargaining is not allowed, and despite the general framework laid out above, some states limit the extent to which departments and unions may negotiate procedures for officer investigation and discipline. There are three paths that have been taken.

  1. Laws removing discipline as a bargaining subject

Washington D.C. has recently pursued the most straightforward reform by eliminating discipline altogether as a subject of collective bargaining. The Washington D.C. Council passed a temporary ordinance that would remove “[a]ll matters” relating to discipline from the negotiation process by requiring that they “be retained by management and not be negotiable.”[81]  Hawaii already takes a similar approach.[82]  Advocates for this approach argue that matters related to law enforcement structural reform, particularly as it pertains to discipline, should not be subject to collective bargaining as a matter of public policy and managerial prerogatives.[83]

  1. Laws limiting the scope of discipline-related bargaining

A statute in Nebraska (which applies to the State Patrol but not to other law enforcement agencies in the state) retains investigation and discipline within the scope of collective bargaining but sets a baseline, or “floor,” for certain elements of the investigation and discipline process, allowing negotiation only above that “floor” and on other matters.[84]

For example, the Nebraska statute expressly prohibits collective bargaining provisions that limit the discretion of the Patrol to use records of prior misconduct for the past ten years in determining appropriate disciplinary action. Police unions may negotiate limits on the use of prior disciplinary records that are older than ten years.

Likewise, the Nebraska statute prohibits collective bargaining provisions that limit the time during which a disciplinary investigation may be initiated or discipline may be imposed to less than two years after the occurrence of the alleged misconduct. But unions may negotiate a statute of limitations for disciplinary actions that is not less than two years. And any discipline-related matters not explicitly addressed in the statute remain subject to collective bargaining, without restraint.

  1. Laws limiting mechanisms to reverse appropriate discipline

A recent Oregon law represents a third approach. The Oregon state legislature recently enacted a statute that expands management’s authority over officer accountability by providing that departmentally imposed discipline may only be reversed in arbitration if (1) the arbitrator’s findings are inconsistent with management’s findings of misconduct, or (2) the punishment imposed does not fall within the bounds of the “discipline guide” or “discipline matrix” that was negotiated during the collective bargaining process.[85]  The collective bargaining process, including over disciplinary procedures, is otherwise undisturbed.

Supporters of this measure suggest that a disciplinary matrix removes some of the subjectivity in the disciplinary process while the limitation on arbitration further increases consistency and accountability. Critics of the statute express concern that the use of a discipline matrix will incentivize law enforcement agencies and police unions to reduce through bargaining the severity of punishments within the discipline matrix.[86]

States Should Reform Laws That Restrict Investigation Procedures

We believe that state laws should be designed to permit municipalities to negotiate CBAs that allow our departments to hold officers accountable and, where necessary, to impose discipline or remedial measures in a timely and responsible way. We can, through that process, establish frameworks for officer investigation and discipline that are appropriately efficient, fair to the officers under investigation, and transparent to the general public. But if state law imposes restrictive procedures and removes them from negotiations, it is a roadblock to a fair and efficient system.

For this reason, we believe that states should reassess such laws. Some state law provisions are sensible and less likely than others to impede the process of holding officers appropriately accountable. A state wishing to retain those elements could identify where the statute codifies provisions that truly do restrict the ability of departments to hold officers accountable in a reasonable manner—such as provisions limiting the length of investigations, establishing a short statute of limitations for complaints, requiring investigators to turn over evidence to accused officers prior to interviews, prohibiting or limiting the investigation of anonymous or third-party complaints, or mandating who may serve on a hearing or appeals board—and seek to carve out just those provisions.

Officer Certification and Decertification

We recommend that all states have in place a system for the certification of law enforcement officers that sets appropriate standards of conduct and competency. All but four states have such systems today. Certification can—as it does with other professions—ensure that the corps of professional law enforcement officers meet the standards and abide by the policies established for them.

We also recommend that states have in place a system for suspending or revoking an officer’s certification upon the recommendation of his or her department’s chief after an investigation by the department showing that the officer has breached those standards and engaged in serious misconduct. That authority fosters accountability and provides a mechanism for the removal of officers from service if they fail to meet the prescribed professional standards.

We recommend that systems for the retention and sharing of decertification data, particularly across state lines, be improved. Officers who are terminated by one department for misconduct that bears on their fitness for duty should not be hired by another department.

Certification Requirements Help Establish and Maintain a Professional Police Force

Serving as a law enforcement officer is a profession, just as serving as a lawyer, a doctor, a hair stylist, or an electrician is. Those professions, and many more, are the subject of state certification standards for competency and ethical behavior. In many states, there are agencies that certify officers. They are commonly called a Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board or commission, and they set qualification standards for who may become an officer and ensure that officers remain up-to-date on both developments in policing and the applicable standards of conduct. As an initial matter, we recommend that the four states (California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Jersey) that do not already require that law enforcement officers be certified should establish such systems.

The International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) provides guidance at a high level on the appropriate topics for certification standards.[87]  But states appropriately retain the responsibility for filling in the details and the flexibility to tailor certification standards to their needs.

Beyond IADLEST, there are many sources of best practices in policing, including this Report, but also publications by the Police Executive Research Forum, the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and others. The views of those organizations on what makes for a professional police force should inform POST standards. Most systems establish minimum certification standards on matters like age, education, and physical capacity, and set requirements for training and state certification examinations. POSTs should add substantive certification requirements and standards, which may be derived from these recognized authorities on police best practices cited above, as appropriate.

For example, a background check to ensure an officer candidate’s moral fitness is a component of the IADLEST model and a part of most existing state certification processes. A background check should, of course, inquire into a candidate’s prior employment as a law enforcement officer, including whether the candidate has previously been decertified, terminated, or disciplined. Officers decertified in one state should not be able to obtain certification in another.

But POSTs should also establish additional standards of conduct and appropriate policies for officers, such as against witness intimidation or giving false testimony.

Expanding Grounds for Decertification

The statutory grounds for decertification vary greatly across the states. Some states allow decertification only in narrow, defined cases while other states give POSTs significant discretion to decertify officers. In the most restrictive examples, POSTs may only decertify an officer if the officer has been convicted of a crime bearing on his or her fitness. Others have the authority to decertify an officer for conduct that, for example, shows a “reckless disregard” for public safety.

At a minimum, we recommend that POSTs have authority to decertify officers if that officer’s department has terminated him or her for conduct that violates the professional standards of policing by showing a reckless disregard for public safety or involving acts of dishonesty—for example, an illegal use of force or falsifying evidence.

POSTs should also have authority to address a pattern of discipline, short of termination, that indicates that the officer is unfit to serve. And if an officer resigns to avoid potential discipline, departments should be authorized to complete investigations and, if appropriate, POSTs should be able to revoke that former officer’s certification.

We do not recommend that POSTs replicate the investigations done by police departments. Departments should have the responsibility and the authority to investigate alleged misconduct and to ensure accountability of officers. But POSTs should have authority to decertify based upon the investigations undertaken by departments.

Improving Information Retention and Sharing Systems

Currently, states may report decertifications to the National Decertification Index maintained by IADLEST, but such reporting is not uniform and, thus, the database is not comprehensive. For this reason, even diligent POSTs (and police departments) may be unable to determine whether a prospective officer has been previously decertified.

State legislatures should consider laws, like one pending in the Massachusetts legislature, that require POSTs to report decertifications to the National Decertification Index. States should also consider establishing public databases of their own to track decertifications and make information available to the public and other states.[88]  Regardless of statutory requirements, POSTs should report to the National Decertification Index. More complete information will make the background check process described above more likely to screen out unqualified candidates.

POSTs Should Include Citizens

Some POSTs are made up primarily or exclusively of current or former law enforcement officers and police chiefs. Their experience and perspective are important. But other perspectives would be productive to include as well in POST deliberations about the appropriate certification standards and appropriate exercise of decertification authority. Just as many of the boards that discipline lawyers include non-lawyers, POSTs would benefit from citizen participation. Members should not all be drawn from current or former law enforcement and they should represent a diverse range of backgrounds and professions.

The Role of Departments in Supporting Officer Certification Systems

Police departments play a vital role here. POSTs in many states rely on reports from the departments within the state to learn about officer conduct that could merit decertification. And, as noted, we recommend that POSTs rely upon the investigations undertaken by departments. Some states, such as South Carolina, require departments to report conduct meriting decertification,[89] but many others do not. We recommend that departments adopt a requirement that serious misconduct be reported to the POST.

Obviously, departments should consider prior decertification when contemplating the hiring of an officer. Some states, such as Oregon, require departments to consult, to the extent possible, a candidate officer’s personnel records from other departments in which he or she has served, both within the state and elsewhere.[90]  Even where not required, department’s should follow this practice, and should check in- and out-of-state decertification databases, where available, along with the National Decertification Index.

Departments will be able to do their jobs better if they are able to determine whether a candidate for employment has been decertified elsewhere.

[66]       See, e.g., Mayor Muriel Bowser, Office of Police Complaints, “Complaint Forms and Brochures,” https://policecomplaints.dc.gov/node/161132.
[67]       See, e.g., Deputy Chief Beau Thurnauer, Best Practices Guide, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Smaller Police Departments Technical Assistance Program, https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/BP-InternalAffairs.pdf.
[68]      President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at 21 (2015), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/Publications/cops-p311-pub.pdf.
[69]       See, e.g., Deputy Chief Beau Thrunauer, Best Practices Guide, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Smaller Police Departments Technical Assistance Program, https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/BP-InternalAffairs.pdf.
[70]       See, e.g., Consent Decree, United States v. City of Baltimore, No. 17-cv-00099, at ¶¶ 69-81 (D. Md. Jan. 12, 2017).
[71]       President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at 62 (2015), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/Publications/cops-p311-pub.pdf.
[72]       Police Executive Research Forum, Building and Sustaining an Officer Wellness Program: Lessons from the San Diego Police Department, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at 6 (2018), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/Publications/cops-w0863-pub.pdf.
[73]       President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at 64 (2015), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/Publications/cops-p311-pub.pdf.
[74]       Police Executive Research Forum, Building and Sustaining an Officer Wellness Program: Lessons from the San Diego Police Department, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at 6 (2018), https://cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/Publications/cops-w0863-pub.pdf.
[75]     Id.
[76]       Stephen Rushin, Police Disciplinary Appeals, 167 U. Penn. L. Rev. 545, 574-76 (2019) (allowing officers say in selecting the arbitrator “may incentivize arbitrators to consistently compromise on punishment to increase their probability of being selected in future cases”).
[77]       Stephen Rushin, Police Union Contracts, 66 Duke L.J. 1191, 1204 (2017).
[78]       Id. at 1205.
[79]       See, e.g., Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, § 9200(c)(1)-(2).
[80]       See, e.g., Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 38-1110(B) (investigation should be complete within 180 days of receipt of allegation); Fla. Stat. Ann. § 112.532(1)(d) (accused officer to be provided all evidence including witness statements prior to investigative interview); 50 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. §§ 725/3.8(b) (complaints must be supported by sworn affidavit); Md. Pub. Safety Code § 3-104(c)(2) (complaints alleging brutality must be filed with 366 days of incident).
[81]       Washington D.C. Ordinance B23-0826 (“All matters pertaining to the discipline of sworn law enforcement personnel shall be retained by management and not be negotiable.”).
[82]       Haw. Rev. Stat. § 89-9(d)(4) (“The employer and the exclusive representative shall not agree to any proposal that would . . . interfere with the rights and obligations of a public employer to . . . [s]uspend, demote, discharge, or take other disciplinary action against employees for proper cause.”).
[83]       See Ayesha Hardaway, Time is Not on Our Side: Why Specious Claims of Collective Bargaining Rights Should Not Be Allowed to Delay Police Reform Efforts, 15 Stanford J. Civ. Rights & Civ. Liberties 137, 144 (2019).
[84]       See Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-1377(3).
[85]       Ore. Rev. Stat. § 243.706.
[86]     Nigel Jaquiss, “Skeptics Say Oregon’s Police Arbitration Bill Doesn’t Do Enough, While Cops Play Defense,” Willamette Week (June 25, 2020), https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/06/25/skeptics-say-oregons-police-arbitration-bill-doesnt-do-enough-while-cops-play-defense/.
[87]       International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, “Model Minimum Standards,” https://www.iadlest.org/our-services/model-standards.
[88]       Massachusetts Senate Bill 2820, Sec. 6 (passed Senate July 14, 2020) (creating Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 6, §§ 223(c), 225(h)).
[89]       S.C. Code § 23-23-150(B).
[90]       Oregon House Bill 4207, Sec. 4 (enacted June 30, 2020).