Contrary to widely held opinion, the New York Police Department isn’t opposed to greater transparency in its internal discipline process, which holds police officers accountable for complying with department rules about use of force and the proper exercise of authority and with the many other regulations that police officers must obey in the exercise of their duty.
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We actively support amending New York State Civil Rights Law Section 50a to allow the release of key information — such as officer name, charges, documents and disciplinary outcome — about significant discipline cases when these cases have been fully adjudicated and resolved.
This would comprise nearly every disciplinary case of significant public interest, including cases involving corruption, domestic violence, driving while impaired, perjury, misuse of department resources, improper use of force and improper searches. But we oppose the wholesale repeal of Section 50a for two principal reasons.
First, the original purpose of the law was to prevent defense attorneys from unfairly or inaccurately impugning the testimony of police officers in criminal court proceedings. Section 50a requires that a judge determine the relevance of any personnel record to a criminal case before granting defense attorneys access to the information. This is a reasonable and necessary protection for the entire criminal-justice process.
Second, repeal would pose a significant risk to police officers. Last year, the NYPD recorded 154 direct threats against individual officers, up from 151 such threats in 2017.
Neither total includes the annual average of another 150 general threats made against police in New York City during the same period. In one egregious case, an officer was targeted with a mail bomb by a perpetrator angry about a previous police action. The explosive device was sent to the wrong address, where it killed an unfortunate and innocent recipient.
By amending, rather than repealing, Section 50a, we can protect officers, when necessary, by withholding records when there is reason to believe an officer’s safety is in jeopardy.
Protecting officers is also a principal reason why we would delay release of case-by-case disciplinary records until the conclusion of each disciplinary process, along with the wish to provide the public with a complete, rather than a piecemeal, account of each case.
The public should rest assured, however, that even with Section 50a in place, the current obstacles to transparency haven’t impeded the processes by which police officers are held accountable.
The NYPD has the most robust and exacting civil-service discipline process in the Big Apple, if not the state, in terms of the range of offenses it monitors, the number of cases it adjudicates and the severity of penalties it assesses in cases of serious misconduct. Thirty-one officers were fired or forced from the department in 2018 alone, and numerous other officers were subject to significant penalties.
The NYPD has also opened its discipline system to scrutiny by outside review. The department is currently in the process of implementing recommendations for improvement to the system made by an independent panel of distinguished former prosecutors who assessed our discipline system last fall.
Proponents of repealing 50a take rhetorical advantage of the fact that the law itself keeps the Police Department from talking about our disciplinary actions in any meaningful way because, under the law, we can’t discuss particular cases in any detail.
These proponents sketch a picture of a system that is “shrouded in secrecy” and, therefore, frequently fails to discipline serious offenders. There is no validity to the latter characterization, but the NYPD can’t effectively dispute it so long as Section 50a is in place in its current form.
Amending the law as I have proposed will provide the public with full disclosure of our disciplinary process, while protecting both the integrity of the courtroom and the safety of our officers. It will also allow us to demonstrate beyond dispute that the NYPD discipline system is effective, thorough and fair.
James O’Neill serves as commissioner of the NYPD.
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