Internal Controls and Organizational Liability Discussion
Order ID:89JHGSJE83839 Style:APA/MLA/Harvard/Chicago Pages:5-10 Instructions:
Internal Controls and Organizational Liability Discussion
EMPA 311: Micro Lecture – Session 5:
BY: Adjunct Professor Carlos Sanchez, Golden Gate University
Internal controls and organizational liability is a tremendous concern for any LE leader and manager. Facilities, resources and proper equipment and training are essential in maintaining an organization in an ethic form, reduce liability, promote positive behaviors and establish barriers that members of a LE agency know and understand. Many organizations simply write policies and procedures without any guidance or training. In today’s era, policies and procedures become extremely essential to promote trust in the community that it serves and faith in the office.
In establishing internal controls, such as policies and procedures, Leaders must take into mind limitations from union contracts. Many LE agencies have a strong union and political presence in the community they serve, therefore, receive more benefits in their contracts that can effect a department’s allocation of resources, such as personnel to certain shifts, funding for equipment and alter organizational missions. This can promote a positive work environment dependent on the support by the leaders of the department with the union. For instance, negotiated union contracts may include more training for officers in the use of the Taser. However, the liability issue also comes into play by the department to see whether it lacked training their officers properly in the past in the use of Tasers. Prior incidents may become an issue in a lawsuit due to the lack of ability to perform the duties in the use of a Taser adequately. Thus, union contracts and liability issues become a balancing item that cannot be ignored.
Allocating proper equipment and facilities can be also used “[a]s incentives or rewards for performance (Kania/Davis, P.200).” Kania and Davis state this in the form of rewards for an employee who is allocated the new car or equipment. This does and can promote job satisfaction in a system that does not have bonuses as in the private sector. However, often times it can become a union contract negotiation item and LE leaders must look at every new technology with an eye on training, misuse, and establishing guidelines and policies for its application. For example, a LE union who negotiates its membership to be issued iPhones can create a liability issue for its own membership if a member starts to use the cell phone for his personal purpose. The positives of an issued phone is communication, accessibility to information quickly such as photos of subjects or evidence, ability to access web-based programs for locate and criminal information instantly and ability to photograph and record. Such equipment seems valuable to a LE person, however, without proper ethical training and set policies, the equipment can be abused and subject to liability by the department and disciplinary action to a member. Recently we learned through media reports of text messages by officers with racist remarks done on department phones. The phones are subject to be inspected without a search warrant. All personal photos, emails, texts, calls, and notes are topic of review. Unless there is a criminal investigation, the data is also subject to a request by the public under the Public Freedom Information Act. Equipment in itself has also been the subject of criticism by the media and public with the ‘militarization’ of police equipment such as armored vehicles and protective gear. This in itself becomes a struggle by LE to balance the safety of its officers and its image. LE has faced this with every new type of crime it faces. Before officers were equipped with six shooters, but the bad guys had weapons with more ammunition. So then officers went to semi-automatic pistols with extended magazines (holds more bullets), but the bad guys got AK-47s. Where does it stop? And would the officers be criticize at the next critical incident because “they [police] were not prepared for the school shooting” where the subjects used assault style weapons as they slaughtered innocent students? Balance and the needs of the community are essential. A careful review and assessment of the needs should be evaluated with careful policies in place for the use of specialized equipment. Recently San Jose Police created a policy for the use of recently acquired drones. The public and media portrayed the purchase of drones as a violation of their Fifth Amendment (secure in their property, home and person). But San Jose conducted a public relations campaign in order to advise the public that its use will solely be for critical incidents, as was the recent case of a San Jose Police officer being gunned down and killed while responding to check on the well-being of a man, who in turn shot the officer from his balcony and then retreated back to his home.
Every LE department also struggles with the issue of proper ethical and sensitivity/diversity training because of staff restraints or lack of resources. Too often the general public and media focus on larger departments’ lack of training or policies. However, most LE departments in the country are under 30 sworn officers with an average of about 21 officers per agency. This number is small creating challenges for the leaders to properly take their officers away to train jeopardizing leaving their communities unprotected and leaving the agency liable in the event of any unforeseen situation. Most agencies are struggling with staffing issues and maintaining staffing 24/7. This is a huge challenge for any department, especially given life realities such as vacation & sick time allocations, managing crisis and overtime. For smaller departments especially, a good working relationship with their city manager or mayor depending on the structure can be beneficial during budget negotiations because of the small size. Value-added contributions (VACs) such as equipment that can reduce the use of manpower, i.e., license plate readers at key entry areas of their city limits, can be argued as equipment that will produce an added value to the department and its members. Larger departments may argue the same, but often times VACs are more costly for larger departments and efficiency is countered by cost.
LE must focus on the importance of identifying the important issues within their department and community to properly and wisely be able to use and allot resources efficiently and effectively. This requires many tools, such as surveys, statistics, community meetings, input from other stakeholders and political climate. The SARA (Scanning, Analyze, Respond, Assess) model is often most used in assessing a situation to properly respond. Kania and Davis point out the use of time management tools such as the Gantt chart. This is used often especially in the implementation process after an analysis of a problem that needs to be address. The Gantt chart is also used in the implementation of policy or training. In Oakland, as a result to the Riders incident, they entered into a consent decree that created a review for many inefficiencies in the department and with the use of a Gantt chart, they have incrementally have addressed each of them.
Every department must stay on top of technological advances, political and social climate and laws to reduce liability and scrutiny. It becomes imperative for every department, regardless of size, to update their policies and procedures to avoid such liability. Policies that are updated reflect a department that cares about its members and the community it serves. It fosters trust throughout the community and emphasizes the importance of having transparent procedures that address even the most mundane situation. Proper vetted policies and procedures must be the guiding tool for every LE department. It can be used for training purposes, how-to guidance, and disciplinary purposes. But policies and procedures that are not explicitly explained to their members are useless and have no effect. Training starts in LE from day one at the academy and must be continuous throughout the LE careers especially as polices are modified to fit the emerging changes and legal updates. Attached to this week, you will find an updated “social media use” policy recently revised by me for my department. It reflects the current era of social media and its limiting use for LE members. For many senior officers who were trained in the 80’s and 90’s, social media is new, and for those younger LE members, social media is a part of life, thus for all, training in its application in a LE setting is important and vital.
Organizational liability for LE leaders can also be challenged through the eyes of the media, thus it is important for LE leaders, managers and rank and file to fully understand the power of the media especially in today’s era of social media. Survival skills as Jones depicts are essential to understand as Jones lists in his “Ten Commandments” (P.134). Every LE personnel can be caught off guard by the media and it is important for every agency to have clear and concise policies that are communicated to all in order to avoid the embarrassment of commenting erroneously to the media. Most importantly, Jones list as his number one commandment, “never lie.” This will come back and bite any agency as untrustworthy, bias, hiding the truth, and unreliable. If one cannot give the facts that would jeopardize the investigation, then state to the reporter the same! The worst is when something is made up or a conclusion is made without all the facts. This was recently evident in an Officer-involved shooting where the subject was shot in the back after wielding a knife like a crazy person. Two officers shot the subject within 8 to 10 feet away from the subject respectively. The original report to the media by the Chief was that the officers shot the subject while he was lunging at them and quoted another citizen who claimed the officers saved his life. The facts revealed the subject did indeed have shots on his back. The Chief did revisit the media and community with the new facts, but did not apologize for getting the old facts wrong. If you don’t know, or if you make a mistake, own up to it.
Media relations tend to only report bad stories – crime, officer-involved shootings, corruption, etc., but why not report ‘good stories’ too? Good stories of officers’ work are daily – but they are not reported because it is expected for the officers to respond to a varied of situations like domestic violence cases, an arm robbery or take a report about a theft. Since these are expected duties, LE does not report them or as Jones states, perhaps it is the public that expects the morbid stories of crime or are “[s]o isolated from each other, or insulated from our own neighborhoods (P.140).” But when the public hears news about wrongdoing by police officers it outweighs the good they do each and every day. As in the FBINAA article attached this week, “Defending LE in Court and in the Court of Public Opinion” (Hosko, March 2015), police are portrayed in an unbalanced and unfair manner that has created especially by the media a response of civil unrest, mistrust and anti-police sentiment, especially “[b]y biased or uninformed citizens, politicians, and the press…(P.24).” This point brings more attention to the issue that LE leaders must take action proactively and not reactively to promote their departments, the good they have done, their updated policies and procedures, and their involvement in the community that is reflected to their community. Jones states that reporters are human and respond to human kindness to them too, and I would posit that so does the community.
Assignment:
Review your department or another and analyze how the lack of a policy affected the department and its organizational liability? Also, how would the use of media relations mitigated the exposure to the public due to the lack of policy?