How big a change might Justice review bring to Chester police?
Will a Justice Department review bring change to Chester's police department and its strained relationship with city residents? Touted Thursday as a long-term, transparent strategy for identifying problems with Chester police policies, the probe seeks to present the first critical and public look at the force and its 94 full-time officers.
Will a Justice Department review bring change to Chester's police department and its strained relationship with city residents?
Touted Thursday as a long-term, transparent strategy for identifying problems with Chester police policies, the probe seeks to present the first critical and public look at the force and its 94 full-time officers.
"This is not something to put Chester police officers under a microscope," Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland said at a news conference announcing the collaborative review. "It's to put them on a ladder."
The probe comes at a time when the city police and residents often find themselves at odds. After two people were shot and killed by officers in a span of five weeks this spring, some residents of the 33,000-person city denounced the department for using what they said is too much force.
Chester police, in turn, have found it increasingly difficult to keep peace in the four-square-mile city - one where officers, on average, respond to more than 160 calls a day.
But the review, initiated by Chester officials, will be voluntary. And few mechanisms exist to ensure recommendations from the Justice Department are implemented and maintained in years to come.
Federal officials say all the cities that have voluntarily asked for a review are working to implement their recommendations. Police Commissioner Darren Alston pledged Thursday to take all recommendations seriously.
Las Vegas became the first, in 2011. Ten more followed, including Philadelphia.
There, federal officials said the police department made progress on 90 percent of its recommendations within six months after the review ended.
Called a "collaborative reform process," the evaluation will be conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (known as the COPS office). During a two-year span, inspectors will evaluate Chester in five areas: officer-involved shootings, community policing, building trust, employee development, and data analysis.
The review differs from a full-scale "pattern-or-practice" investigation, headed by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to determine if a police force has violated the Constitution or federal law. In that strategy - used in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo. - the department can turn to the courts to force reforms.
For Chester, however, the recommendations won't have the backing of a judge's order. Instead, the police will face the court of public opinion.
The Justice Department will publicly release a set of recommendations in six to eight months, officials said Thursday, and follow up with progress reports throughout the two years.
The review could cost anywhere between $250,000 and $600,000, federal officials said, with no cost to Chester.
"This [process] informs the public in a very important way," said Samuel Walker, a retired criminal justice professor from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. "It informs public officials with specific detail about where things are going wrong, what needs to be fixed, and how you fix them."
"It takes away the secrecy of how police departments operate," he said.
610-313-8113 @mccabe_caitlin