9 more polices to be commented on over the holidays, deadline January 6th when many people are just returning to work.The day before Christmas Eve the Police Department posted 9 more policies for comments. Many of the policies I posted about just 14 days ago are now gone and the links no longer work – so hurry with your comments! You know, as you’re celebrating over the holidays with family out of state, or at home with the kids while they are on break or while you’re off work and taking a much needed vacation. I think the policies will only be here for 10? 14? days? So they are likely to be gone by the time people return from the holidays on January 6th. Maybe they should clarify that in their policy?
Here’s what it looks like on the website as of yesterday.
I downloaded the polices so the links would stay active, and here’s the changes I noted.
Active Shooter/Killer Incidents, posted 12/10/19
- The main change we can see is that the word “killer” has been added to the word “active shooter” to read “active shooter/killer”.
- There is a bunch of stuff that is redacted and we cannot read, so we don’t know what changes might have been made behind the redaction.
Arson Investigations, posted 12/23/19
- No changes
Changes to Code of Conduct and Standard Operating Procedures, posted 12/23/19
- Changed so members of public can suggest changes or provide feedback on the SOPs throughout the year.
- See below for my suggestions that were not accepted.
identification Procedures, posted 12/23/19
- No changes recommended
Interactions with Youth, posted 12/17/19
- New policy? No changes recommended, but no effective date either.
Investigations of Cases Involving Officers as Victims of Serious Crimes, posted 12/23/19
- Refers officers to use “Notification of Commanding Officers” and “Line of Duty, Life-Threatening Injury or Death of an Employee” policies as appropriate.
- The policy was broadened to include not only if there is a “serious violent crime” but also if one is “attempted”
LE Officer Saftety Act (LEOSA) for Former Madison Police Officers, posted 12/10/19
- Officers no longer required to sign a “waiver and release” form when they arrive for firearms testing.
- Grammar clean up.
- If the applicant doesn’t pass twice in one day, they can’t try a third time, they have to wait til the next scheduled testing day.
Notification of Commanding Officers, posted 12/17/19
- Changes who contacts who in the chain of command.
- Grammar clean up
PSIA Discipline Matrix, posted 12/23/19
- No changes
PSIA Electronic Complaint File Management System, posted 12/23/19
- No changes indicated
Response to Persons with Altered State of Mind, posted 12/12/19
- Added language about what should be included in a threat assessment to include” information provided by reliable reporters (family members, mental health professionals, etc)
- Added effective communication to include “actively listen to the person’s concerns”
- Other grammar clean up.
Recording Suspect Interviews, posted 12/23/19
- No changes
Robberies in Progress and Silent Robbery Alarms, posted 12/23/19
- No changes, portions redacted
- No changes
THEY WILL MAKE SOME CHANGES
It’s worth commenting, I made suggestions and Chief Wahl made at least one of the changes I suggested. I was concerned about his whole process, didn’t know there was a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) on it, but when I found out, I read it and blogged about it. I made the following suggestions on December 13th:
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- They should indicate what years the “every other year” and “every three years” are so people know when the policies will be reviewed.
- They should place a deadline on comments from the public on the website.
- Where do the public comments go? Where is the public discussion? PSRC? Council? Police and Fire Commission?
- The part about not going through the process if there are only grammar, punctuation, word usage takes the opportunity away for public input. Every policy should be reviewed as scheduled and available for comment.
- How did they come up with this schedule? What were the criteria used to determine how often the policies would be reviewed?
- There is no way for the public to initiate the review of a policy, only “any member of the MPD” may recommend a change. Seems like that should be extended to the public as well.
- There should be a way to sign up to get a notification when a new police is posted for review.
I got a response directly from the chief on December 20th, just 3 days later.
Brenda – I looked over your comments on the SOP on SOP changes:
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- I will add language to the SOP indicating that members of the public can also suggest changes/provide feedback (we have had this mechanism in place for a while, the SOP just doesn’t expressly indicate it).
- We asked IT about setting up some kind of email notification for the posting of draft SOPs and were advised that they could not do it. We will manually email draft SOPs to the PSRC members when they are posted.
- We will talk to IT about putting some kind of notation with the posted draft SOPs indicating when they were posted or what the deadline is.
- We used to review all SOPs every year, and it was a significant amount of work. A workgroup split the SOPs into three groups to specify when they will be subject to review, with the more critical SOPs reviewed every year, and others set for 2 and 3 year rotations. This just specifies the minimum time duration between reviews…other things might lead to SOP changes or review more frequently, this just sets up a process to ensure each is reviewed on a regular schedule.
- When we post the draft SOPs they have gone through our internal review process; public comments come to me for consideration before the SOP is finalized.
- I don’t think there is an easy way to indicate what years things are due for review…sometimes an SOP might get reviewed for some other reason outside of the review process, and that might bump it back to another year. Members of the public can submit feedback on any SOP at any time.
- I don’t see merit to including simple corrections in the review process…we are very conservative on how we interpret this, and anything that could be viewed as having an operational or substantive impact will certainly go through the process.
Thanks
And by the 23rd there was a new policy posted incorporating at least one of my suggestions. So, if you comment, looks like you will get a response and there may be some changes. In my case, they only changed the SOP based on what I wrote in #6, but the policy now says that a member of the public can suggest a change to their policies at any point. I appreciate that they seemed to consider the input! Now if only we could have a longer time to give input, clearer deadlines and automatic notifications when a new policy is posted, plus a public comment every one, two or three years on every policy. Still, this is much improved given previously there no comments at all! Thank you Ad Hoc Police Policy Committee!
