Give Panel Real Influence

The naming by San Diego City Manager John Lockwood and Police Chief Bill Kolender of a 12-person panel to review investigations of police misconduct triggers an observation about the history of this issue and a question about its future.

The observation is that, while progress in this area has come painfully slowly, it has nevertheless come. Little more than two years ago, the City Council members could not even agree to create a citizens panel to advise the Police Department on its relations with the public.

It was July, 1985, after weeks of intense debate and compromise, that the council unanimously voted to establish for a two-year period the Citizens Advisory Committee on Police-Community Relations. Today that group is a loud voice speaking out for the meaningful involvement of civilians in the police review process, and the term of its existence has been extended by 18 months.

The panel that Lockwood and Kolender recently appointed--though its powers fall far short of what we and others have argued for--is the result of ongoing community demand for a change in the way police misconduct investigations are handled. And while many minority organizations boycotted the process by which candidates were nominated to serve on the panel, seven of its 12 members are from minority groups.

That civilians will for the first time be reviewing the files of misconduct investigations and making recommendations concerning the disposition of complaints is progress that should not be minimized.

Our question, though, is whether this panel, with its limited access to information and total lack of actual authority, will effectively let the steam out of the movement for a stronger system of civilian review or prove to be yet one more step along the way.

If the Police Department wants to draw the line on the panel’s power where it is now, the police had better bend over backward to see that the recommendations are listened to and the panel members have real, demonstrable influence. It won’t take many negative reports to the public for the political pressure to build rapidly in support of a review panel with much more clout.