Post by No bad cops on Jan 20, 2006 20:27:02 GMT -5
Background checks are standard procedure for aspiring officers. Applicants know fully well that any illegal activity from their past lives could later be detrimental to them in seeking employment.
Of course, not all negative histories are criminal in nature. Officers can be reprimanded, placed on administrative leave, and in some cases fired due to duty-related acts of misconduct or negligence. Although personal records of such transgressions are maintained by state agencies, the information is normally confined within those boundaries.
Consequently, police agencies have had limited access to their applicants’ past on-duty shortcomings, lest the applicants were convicted of theft or assault. In many instances, a cop who abused his or her authority or violated ethical standards could often apply for employment out-of-state with these indiscretions undetected.
Not so anymore. The National Decertification Database (NDD) has helped resolve this loophole by enabling the communications efforts of interstate police agencies.
The NDD provides police hiring agents with a federalized database to review the histories of job applicants. The intranet system maintains a living record of decertified officers with corresponding biographical information, dates of birth, social security numbers, employing agencies, entry and end of service dates, years of decertification actions, reporting agencies, and reporting agencies’ telephone numbers.
“It’s an effort to improve the profession of law enforcement and public safety in the U.S.,” claimed the database’s founder Ray Franklin, who developed the program for the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST), and serves as the organization’s Police Officer Standards and Training Network (POST-Net) operations manager.
According to Franklin, the NDD intranet system currently operates among twenty states, and contains 7,000 records of officers who lost certification for cause within their agencies. "Cause" is defined as misconduct and does not include retirement or other administrative loss of police authority.
Specifically, the database was formulated from a three-part process:
• To survey all states’ policies and practices regarding certification and decertification.
• To garner input from a national roundtable of POST directors, and law enforcement stakeholders including representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police, International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and a variety of rank and file organizations..
• To continue and expand the current operating database.
Franklin adds that the NDD is designed to be an investigative aid that helps hiring bodies eliminate the “bad apples”; it is not intended to automatically exclude any previously employed officer. For example, he stated that an officer could be decertified in one state for an act that would not be deemed an offense in another state. Consequently, the database is merely intended to be a “pointer system” that encourages hiring bodies to contact out-of-state agencies to obtain more detailed information regarding applicants.
A grant ceiling of $100,000 was formally approved for the NDD last autumn by the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the U.S. Department of Justice. As hoped for by Franklin, the NDD has also garnered the backing of police agencies outside the Capital.
“We think it’s a good program… good in concept,” said Mark Whitman who is the General Chair Commissioner of the State Association of Chiefs of Police (SACOP).
SACOP recently introduced a resolution of support for the NDD. Franklin is optimistic that the broader IACP will follow suit later this year.
A training committee within the National Sherriff’s Association has also endorsed the program, and the broader organization will consider endorsing the database later in the year as well.
With the NDD receiving acclaim, Franklin could not ascertain why the concept had not fully come to fruition years earlier. The closest attempt, he pointed out, was The Law Enforcement and Correctional Officers Employment Registration Act of 1996 which proposed a comprehensive national registry for all police officers. The bill never made it out of committee.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement initiated a National Officer Clearinghouse program in its place, compiling nearly 130,000 records. But with IADLEST expressing interest in a program, the Florida project was shut down, and Franklin began devising a basic opt-in system with initial funding from the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office within the U.S. Department of Justice.
Franklin says his database has met little resistance from police agencies or civil libertarians. Rather, he cites varying state laws and regulations for impeding greater participation. He hopes that the current grant funded effort will accelerate development of, and participation in the program
Whitman also alluded to these obstacles, while pointing out that the program garnered great debate within SACOP’s regional and general business meetings. He also cautioned that while his organization had confidence in the program, these sentiments would be influenced “if a guy gets canned [only] because he fell out of favor”.
Currently, a handful of states are not eligible for the NDD since they do not grant themselves the authority to decertify officers. Both Franklin and Whitman believe this should be remedied.
Of course, not all negative histories are criminal in nature. Officers can be reprimanded, placed on administrative leave, and in some cases fired due to duty-related acts of misconduct or negligence. Although personal records of such transgressions are maintained by state agencies, the information is normally confined within those boundaries.
Consequently, police agencies have had limited access to their applicants’ past on-duty shortcomings, lest the applicants were convicted of theft or assault. In many instances, a cop who abused his or her authority or violated ethical standards could often apply for employment out-of-state with these indiscretions undetected.
Not so anymore. The National Decertification Database (NDD) has helped resolve this loophole by enabling the communications efforts of interstate police agencies.
The NDD provides police hiring agents with a federalized database to review the histories of job applicants. The intranet system maintains a living record of decertified officers with corresponding biographical information, dates of birth, social security numbers, employing agencies, entry and end of service dates, years of decertification actions, reporting agencies, and reporting agencies’ telephone numbers.
“It’s an effort to improve the profession of law enforcement and public safety in the U.S.,” claimed the database’s founder Ray Franklin, who developed the program for the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST), and serves as the organization’s Police Officer Standards and Training Network (POST-Net) operations manager.
According to Franklin, the NDD intranet system currently operates among twenty states, and contains 7,000 records of officers who lost certification for cause within their agencies. "Cause" is defined as misconduct and does not include retirement or other administrative loss of police authority.
Specifically, the database was formulated from a three-part process:
• To survey all states’ policies and practices regarding certification and decertification.
• To garner input from a national roundtable of POST directors, and law enforcement stakeholders including representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police, International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and a variety of rank and file organizations..
• To continue and expand the current operating database.
Franklin adds that the NDD is designed to be an investigative aid that helps hiring bodies eliminate the “bad apples”; it is not intended to automatically exclude any previously employed officer. For example, he stated that an officer could be decertified in one state for an act that would not be deemed an offense in another state. Consequently, the database is merely intended to be a “pointer system” that encourages hiring bodies to contact out-of-state agencies to obtain more detailed information regarding applicants.
A grant ceiling of $100,000 was formally approved for the NDD last autumn by the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the U.S. Department of Justice. As hoped for by Franklin, the NDD has also garnered the backing of police agencies outside the Capital.
“We think it’s a good program… good in concept,” said Mark Whitman who is the General Chair Commissioner of the State Association of Chiefs of Police (SACOP).
SACOP recently introduced a resolution of support for the NDD. Franklin is optimistic that the broader IACP will follow suit later this year.
A training committee within the National Sherriff’s Association has also endorsed the program, and the broader organization will consider endorsing the database later in the year as well.
With the NDD receiving acclaim, Franklin could not ascertain why the concept had not fully come to fruition years earlier. The closest attempt, he pointed out, was The Law Enforcement and Correctional Officers Employment Registration Act of 1996 which proposed a comprehensive national registry for all police officers. The bill never made it out of committee.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement initiated a National Officer Clearinghouse program in its place, compiling nearly 130,000 records. But with IADLEST expressing interest in a program, the Florida project was shut down, and Franklin began devising a basic opt-in system with initial funding from the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office within the U.S. Department of Justice.
Franklin says his database has met little resistance from police agencies or civil libertarians. Rather, he cites varying state laws and regulations for impeding greater participation. He hopes that the current grant funded effort will accelerate development of, and participation in the program
Whitman also alluded to these obstacles, while pointing out that the program garnered great debate within SACOP’s regional and general business meetings. He also cautioned that while his organization had confidence in the program, these sentiments would be influenced “if a guy gets canned [only] because he fell out of favor”.
Currently, a handful of states are not eligible for the NDD since they do not grant themselves the authority to decertify officers. Both Franklin and Whitman believe this should be remedied.
