Will An Inspector General Help?

In an editorial, the New York Times came out in full force behind a New York City Council proposal to create the position of Inspector General for the NYPD.  The cops and Mayor Bloomberg don't like the idea at all.

The Police Department called the idea of an inspector general unnecessary. Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said the department was “probably under more scrutiny than any other police agency, probably in the world” and was subject to oversight by two United States attorneys, five district attorneys, the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the Commission to Combat Police Corruption.

Mr. Browne also said that the department had made a “major commitment” to departmental oversight, with 1,000 people assigned to its Internal Affairs Bureau and other “integrity control” units, roughly the same number as are assigned to its counterterrorism operation.

As a rule of thumb, anything the NYPD is against is worthy of attention.  But the argument is factually accurate, the New York City Police Department is indeed under the scrutiny of a variety of prosecutors and agencies already, perhaps more than any other in the world.

The problem is that it hasn't worked.

The department has a long history of episodic misconduct that erupts every time the leadership falls down on the job.

The last time that happened, as documented by the Mollen Commission Report in 1994, the department’s leadership and Internal Affairs Bureau were found to be looking the other way while the police trafficked weapons and sold protection to drug dealers. The commission’s central recommendation — that the city create a strong independent body to monitor the police — remains as relevant today as it was during that scandal nearly 20 years ago.

The Times' editorial runs through the litany of failures, up to the current stop and frisk fiasco that deprives 700,000 New Yorkers the ability to walk down the street without being seized and searched without reason.

Is the answer to create another office, the Inspector General?

Creating an inspector general’s office could help address these shortcomings. Under a bill that 30 of the City Council’s 51 members have signed, the Council would forward a list of candidates to the mayor, who would then have the authority to name an inspector general.

The inspector would serve a seven-year term. He or she would review and report to the public on policies and practices and make periodic recommendations on how to improve them. Because the inspector would have subpoena power, the police department could no longer just say no when asked to produce information.

An inspector general is not a foolproof answer. But the mechanism has worked well elsewhere and could only strengthen oversight in a police department that clearly needs it.

There is little question that the existing "fixes," like the Civilian Complaint Review Board, have been turned into jokes, puppets for the police and administration to create the pretense of oversight while finding nearly every claim "unfounded."  Then, the police can claim it's pure as the driven snow because the CCRB said so.

Will an Inspector General, appointed by the Mayor, who similarly appoints the police commissioner and for whom the police are a critical part of their administration, be any different than the CCRB, or the Commission to Combat Police Corruption?  Or is this just the latest play to open on Broadway, to calm the angry natives by making it appear that there will be someone out there watching the watchers?

As the New York Times correctly concedes, this isn't a foolproof answer. But when it states that it can "only strengthen oversight," it's not at all clear that this is accurate.  The problem with half-baked solutions is two-fold: first, they preclude the creation of better solutions. "It may not be much, but it's something," is a means of putting off harder tasks that have the ability to actually address problems. It's a favorite of compromisers, who love the appearance of answers without much concern for substance.

Second, another office to accomplish the unpleasant tasks that its predecessors have failed to accomplish builds another layer of bureaucracy and diffusion of responsibility.  When the next scandal hits, as it surely will, the fingers will point in all directions, as each claims that some other entity should have foreseen the problem.  Plausible deniability is the bureacrat's best friend.

What isn't needed is more of the same. The problems with the NYPD, and with any police force that's larger than armies of smallish countries, with systemic corruption as well as individual instances of abuse and misconduct, need to be addressed, but another dog and pony show like the CCRB, which was touted as the great solution of its day, adds more without necessarily adding better.

If an Inspector General would be truly independent of both the police and the mayor, fearless in ferreting out corruption, abuse and misconduct and empowered to fix the problems that plague New York, it would be a great thing.  But another toothless tiger making excuses is not only a waste of time and money, but a means of putting off a real fix for another 20 years. 

Do we really want to wait another generation, or the next massive scandal, or another 700,000 per year deprived of their right to walk the streets unmolested, before dealing with the problems?

And can we finally rid ourselves of those apologists for the NYPD at the Civilian Complaint Review Board?







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