Steven Greenhut column in today's Union Tribune pointed out a difficult situation in maintaining police discipline while also keeping the public informed.
LEGISLATURE REVISITS POLICE DISCIPLINARY SECRE... | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com
Apparently in 2006 Senate Bill (SB) 1019 was proposed to open up police department discipline records to the public. At that time, it was "dead on arrival." Now, Assemblyman Mark Leno has introduced another bill: SB1286 to allow the public to learn more about discipline against police officers.
Greenhut seems to imply that we absolutely need to find out the names and discipline history of police officers. However there is another side. Taxpayers invest a LOT of money in training officers. We also pay fairly high salaries to these officers who daily risk their lives to protect us. Exposing those officers to unfair public criticism can discourage people from wanting to be officers and hurt recruiting, which, in turn, can sharply increase the cost to everyone. Sometimes what could be perceived as a police officer making an error, could also be due to inadequate training, equipment, or management. Police management should be the first level under fire from the public. Management should have good statistics at their fingertips that identify the numbers and types of problems encountered and the numbers and types of discipline that has been handed out. Only in cases when police have, in fact, been charged with a possible criminal offense should the individual police officer's name be made public.
I hope that the new SB1286 takes all of that into account.
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