Sacramento: Today, leaders of the California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) announce a platform of guiding principles and policies outlining an inclusive strategy intended to bring law enforcement together with community leaders, elected officials and social justice organizations across the state.
Reforms include calling for a nationwide use-of-force policy standard modeled after California law, expansion of accountability and disciplinary actions, an increased emphasis on transparency, ongoing focus on diversity in recruitment, programmatic support for officer mental health and wellness, and continued development of specific training practices.
Of the formally adopted platform, newly elected CPCA president, Eric R. Nuñez, said:
“As an association representing over 26 million Californians, CPCA condemns all acts of excessive force and racially biased policing in the country. It is evident that our nation remains host to structural divides caused by racial injustice, and although peace officers are not the root cause of this, we are also not immune from the impacts of our shared past. This transformative platform will ensure greater accountability for California’s law enforcement agencies and will prioritize the safety and shared security of the communities we serve”.
Key elements of the platform include:
- Department policies: Nationwide use-of-force policy requirements, emphasis on de-escalation, national adoption of requirements to intercede against excessive force, protection of peaceful protests and the right to free speech and alignment with California law.
- Officer accountability: Formal decertification of officers under specified circumstances, the creation of a tracking system for resigning officers that are under investigation or set to be terminated, and support for mandating the Attorney General investigate deadly force incidents if requested by a local agency.
- Transparency: Public disclosure of police personnel files related to use of force resulting in death or great bodily injury, sexual assault and other serious job-related misconduct. Furthermore, mandating the public disclosure of all law enforcement policies.
- Recruitment and retention: Diversification of police recruiting efforts, increased representation of minority communities in law enforcement agencies, and improvements to psychological assessments and other standards currently utilized to identify potential police candidates.
- Mental health and awareness: Support funding for programs to improve peace officers’ mental health and implementation of mandatory health and wellness checks to ensure the continued stability and safety of officers.
- Training: Continued expansion of training programs aimed specifically at de-escalation, alternatives to deadly force, implicit and racial bias, and cultural and community awareness.
- Reforms outside policing: Increased educational resources for historically disadvantaged communities to close the achievement gap, close collaboration with requisite professionals to provide appropriate response services to those in crisis, growth in vocational training and job opportunities, increased rehabilitative and re-entry services, and an emphasis on access to fair housing.
“Although a prominent step in the right direction, police reform, in and of itself, will not resolve the socio-economic and racial divides in our country,” commented President Nuñez. “Rather, a holistic approach that incorporates equal education, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation services, housing, and vocational opportunities must be adopted in tandem.”
The modernized platform not only guides internal policy and programmatic change for law enforcement, it seeks to align police conduct with the expectations of the communities we serve while holding every officer and agency to an equal standard for all Californians.
The California Police Chiefs Association represents the state’s municipal police chiefs whose agencies protect over 26 million Californians.
Statements of purpose:
- CPCA condemns all acts of excessive force and racially biased policing in the country.
- Our country suffers from a history of racism, and although peace officers are not the root cause of this, we are also not immune from the impacts of our shared past.
- In order to listen to each other, we cannot imbue generalizations of any culture, race, or group of people.
- Police work is a noble and honorable profession, and now more than ever, we recognize the ongoing need to continue recruiting the next generation of peace officers who are diverse, representative of their communities, and have the mindset to uphold our laws with fairness and impartiality.
- Police reform, in and of itself, will not resolve the socio-economic and racial divides in our country. Rather, a holistic approach that incorporates equal education, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation and re-entry services, housing, and vocational opportunities must be adopted in tandem.
- The policies and goals listed below are meant to be part of an inclusive and dynamic strategy to move forward with law enforcement, community leaders, elected officials, and social justice organizations working together.
Department policies:
– Use of force policies
- Support nationwide requirements that officers de-escalate when safe and feasible, as required currently in California following CPCA sponsored legislation. o Support national requirements that officers intercede against excessive force, modeled after California law that CPCA sponsored.
- Support, as required by California law, nationwide requirements that officers, as trained, render medical aid following a use of force.
- Support comprehensive nationwide reporting requirements on use of force incidents, as currently standardized by California law.
- Support national requirements modeled after California law, which CPCA sponsored, that officers only use force proportional to resistance. o Support comprehensive and specific guidelines on application of force, including use of less lethal force (tasers, kinetic energy projectiles, tear gas, etc.), and prevent the authorization of the carotid restraint.
– Protests and First Amendment Protections
- CPCA supports the development of policies to facilitate free and lawful expression, de-escalate violence and resolve conflict peacefully with the overall goal of ensuring public safety and protecting First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly.
Accountability and disciplinary actions:
- CPCA supports the de-certification of officers under specified conditions, including:
- Officers convicted of any felonies.
- As determined by the certifying agency based on a history of egregious misconduct including multiple sustained complaints/violations, or conviction of specified misdemeanors. o Review and determinations about certification should be handled by an impartial authority made up of subject matter experts with relevant experience outside of the employing agency.
- Every officer should be afforded due process in a decertification proceeding in order to maintain fairness and justice.
- Support tracking information related to officers that resign in lieu of discipline or termination, or those with multiple sustained complaints/violations.
- Support, upon the request of a local agency, mandating the Attorney General investigate deadly force incidents.
Transparency:
- Support the public disclosure of police personnel files related to officer misconduct, serious use of force resulting in death or great bodily injury, sexual assault, and job-related dishonesty. CPCA supported this legislation in California (SB 1421, Skinner).
- Support having all law enforcement policies made available to the public.
Recruitment and retention:
- Support ongoing efforts to recruit diverse police candidates.
- Support reviews and audits of hiring process, psychological screening process, and other standards currently utilized to identify worthy candidates.
- Support all reasonable efforts to retain existing officers who serve with integrity and honor.
Peace officers’ mental health and wellness:
- Support funding for programs to improve peace officers’ mental health and wellness.
- Support regular mandatory mental health and wellness checks for peace officers.
Training
- Support mandated and regular implicit and racial bias training for all law enforcement.
- Support de-escalation training that focuses on alternatives to deadly force.
- Support changes in overall training that focus more on cultural and community awareness.
Reforms outside policing:
- Support efforts to close educational achievement gaps by increasing resources to areas historically disadvantaged.
- Support efforts to increase access to vocational training and job opportunities, including careers in public safety.
- Improve our response to those in crisis – individuals with severe mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Police are not always the appropriate response, and we should look to our service providers in many of these cases. When police do respond, they should be highly trained co-deployment teams with capabilities that match the need.
- Support access to fair housing, which will create core stability for those in need and help reduce the homeless population.
- Support rehabilitative and re-entry programs.
8 comments
One change they forgot. Tell blacks to stop committing more crimes than any other race and that will greatly reduce their interactions with the police.
So, these cop associations are CAVING IN? Shame! But the good news is that it won’t change a thing!
As an LEO I will say what is important- Officers need not to be afraid of intervening when they see a co-worker acting inappropriately or aggressively. Often times officers stand back and do nothing, not because they don’t care, or agree with the aggressive officer, but because they fear retaliation. I’ve seen this happen. Some areas in law enforcement will never change until the veteran officers from the 80’s and 90’s retire or have some type of intervention.
It’s about time that police learn how to police and not act like occupying armies. It’s also about time for cities to step up and fund intervention programs that will remove many duties now inadequately performed by untrained police officers. Police are not supposed to be social workers
So you want a social worker to be called in when some crazy guy is holding a big knife to his girlfriend’s or wife’s throat? And he’s drunk and demented? Is that what you want? Use your head, man! What about said guy dangling an infant from a 3rd story balcony? Whatcha gonna do then? Age has obviously obligerated your thinking process, Curmudgeon! Give it a rest already!
Sounds like B/S from someone who wouldn’t make a pimple on a real Cops’s ass. Guess you never heard of Community Policing where Officers and citizens are in a partnership and work together to solve Community problems.
In terms of “changes and reforms” what we need is TOUGHER cops and more militarized equipment to compete with the state-of-the-art firearms favored by criminal gangs!
Leave it up to a bunch of politically correct hacks pretending to be Police Chiefs to fall on their knees and worship the radical element of society. If these pretend Chiefs wanted to make meaningful changes to their own Departments, they should have gone to the negotiation table and asked for them. I was particularly annoyed at their “diversity” recruitment proposal. For many years all agencies I am aware of have been reaching out to minority communities for Police Applicants. While most agencies have not reduced hiring standards to accommodate minorities, we still have gotten excellent men and women from those efforts. Police Agencies should be focused on hiring only the “best of the best” applicants regardless of their race, gender or age. What we need to do is replace many of these pseudo Chiefs with real leaders who back the Cops on the street doing the heavy lifting. I guess you have probably figured out I was never a Chief?
Comments are closed.