PERSPECTIVE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT : Oversight, but Not by Other Cops : The Sheriff’s Department needs civilian review, but the process outlined in the Kolts report would be lamentably weak.

Whoever becomes the next Los Angeles County sheriff will retain extraordinary autonomy. No police commission oversees the policies of the Sheriff’s Department. Nor is there any form of civilian oversight of complaints about the sheriff’s deputies, even though, of America’s 50 largest cities, more than 30 have already adopted some form of civilian review.

The recent Kolts report on the Sheriff’s Department recommends that Los Angeles to catch up with America and adopt a civilian-oversight mechanism. But, like ice cream, civilian review can be packaged in many flavors.

Retired Judge James G. Kolts has recommended an appellate review system where, if the Sheriff’s Department calls a complaint unfounded or unable to be resolved, “a citizen should be entitled to a review of that decision by someone outside the department.” If the outsider--preferably a retired judge--affirms the department, that ends the matter. If not, “the case is remanded for further investigation by the relevant captain.”

However well-intentioned, the model Kolts proposes for civilian oversight is lamentably weak. Unlike San Francisco’s civilian-review mechanism, where civilian investigators examine each complaint and bring their findings before outside adjudicators, here deputies would investigate every complaint. Should the outside civilian appellate adjudicator be dissatisfied, a “relevant captain” would be obliged to reinvestigate. In short, the entire investigative process would remain in-house, conducted by deputies.

This is not a good idea. The major reason for having a civilian-oversight mechanism is mistrust of cops investigating cops. Democratic institutions, such as civilian review or the jury, are instituted not because they are more efficient or able, but because they are trusted. Assuming, as the Kolts report does, that civilian review is valuable, the question remains: How is it best organized?

A fully functioning police-oversight agency needs to investigate complaints, conduct hearings, subpoena witnesses and report its findings to the sheriff or police chief and to the public. In this model, the review agency serves as an alternative to the internal-affairs department, reporting to the chief cop, who is empowered to discipline police, a task and prerogative that has to be left in the authority of the top police executive.

Inadequate funding will devastate any system. When a city or county introduces a police-review agency, the number of complaints about improper police conduct are sure to rise. After all, one purpose of civilian oversight is to assist and encourage victims of excessive force to bring their complaints forward. Just as rape complaints will mount when police establish a sexual-assault unit, so should excessive-force complaints climb with the establishment of a civilian-review agency.

Police-review agencies need to be staffed by competent, well-trained investigators who have the authority and the financial backing to carry out their investigations. This doesn’t mean that civilian-review investigations will be more expensive than those conducted by internal affairs. On the contrary, even investigators who are protected by Civil Service are likely to be cheaper than sworn police officers. Police unions will resist civilian oversight for this reason alone. No union appreciates a reduction in its membership.

It is not possible to have fair and effective civilian oversight when the hearing officers or panels are biased or less than competent. This raises a delicate issue. To what extent should hearing officers resemble jurors, in which case representativeness of the population becomes an important goal; or judges, where competence is the major consideration? In this setting, diversity must defer to expertise.

Trials have both judge and jury. The jury doesn’t decide without judicial guidance as to the admissibility of evidence, the relevancy of argument, the scope of cross-examination. Cops won’t ever like civilian oversight, but they--and the public--will find it more acceptable when investigations and hearings are conducted not by “representative” persons but by hard-nosed, experienced investigators and fair and qualified hearing officers.

Cops will resist the potential discipline of civilian oversight by ignoring requests for records, by being late for appointments for interviews, by withholding documents--in sum, doing whatever can be done to disrupt the system. If a police-review agency is to work effectively, without unreasonable delay, the oversight system must be afforded access to police witnesses and documents through legal mandate or subpoena power.

Finally, to be successful, police oversight needs a degree of openness. This doesn’t mean that the personnel files of accused officers should be opened to the public, nor that truly personal information such as home address, telephone number, marital history, credit rating and so forth should be made public. But an accuser and the accused are both entitled to know the outcome of the hearing and the reasons for the result.

No matter how effective civilian oversight, however, most of the time cops will be exonerated, and should be. Most complaints against police are not sustainable. The police-review system in San Francisco nailed cops only 8% of the time in 1990, which means that accusers were upheld only one in 10 times. Nevertheless, a fair and well-functioning civilian-oversight system is necessary, even if not sufficient, to generate public acceptance of the police. The Kolts report is commendable in many respects. But its police-oversight model needs to be reconsidered in light of the realities of police attitudes and behavior shown by this otherwise exemplary, even courageous, report.