• NACOLE

    Civilian Oversight Agency Directory Survey

    National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE)

  • About the Civilian Oversight Agency Directory (COAD)

    The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) is soliciting all civilian oversight entities in the United States to participate in the following survey in order to develop the first comprehensive directory of all oversight agencies and their characteristics.This dataset will be made available to the public for oversight practitioners, scholars, and academics to use for further advance the field of civilian oversight of law enforcement.

    The COAD will also be housed within NACOLE's Civilian Oversight Directory web application. This application, developed with support from the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, will allow end users to search, filter, and compare oversight agencies across the country by various essential functions and characteristics.

     

    About the Survey

    This survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. It will ask a variety of questions about the functions, authority, and structure of your oversight agency. In addition to having an understanding of your agency's functions and structure, respondents are strongly advised to have the following information on-hand before beginning the survey:

    • Total budget of your oversight agency for the most recent fiscal year
    • Total budget of the law enforcement agency overseen for the most recent fiscal year
    • Total number of staff and their positions
    • Total number of sworn personnel for all law enforcement agencies overseen and the year for this estimate
    • The most recent estimate of the civilian population under your oversight agency's jurisdiction and the year for this estimate
    • Year your oversight agency was created
    • Level of access to various internal and external sources of information (IA databases, CAD, EWS, personnel files, etc.), including whether your access is "backend" (indirect) or "front-end" (direct)
    • Board/commission composition and appointment (where applicable)
    • Copies of enabling legislation and any other relevant documentation in either PDF or Microsoft Word format. (file size limit: 100MB per file)

    Once you begin the survey, you must complete it in its entirety in order for your oversight agency's information to be submitted.

    To make changes or corrections to your submission, please write to mike.vitoroulis@mac.com.

  • Participating Agencies

  • Basic Agency Information

    This section captures some basic information about your oversight agency.

  • Local Oversight Structure

    This section asks about the structure of civilian oversight in your jurisdiction.
  • Oversight of (select all that apply):*
  • Does your agency oversee prisons, jails, or other correctional facilities?*
  • Enabling Legislation (select all that apply)*
  • Enabling Legislation:*
  • Who does your agency report to?*

  • Who does your agency report to?
  • Has the law enforcement agency you oversee been the subject of a formal pattern or practice investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice?*
  • Has the law enforcement agency you oversee entered into a settlement agreement (i.e. collaborative reform agreement) or court-enforced consent decree concerning the practices of the overseen department?*

  • Agency Type and Oversight Functions

  • Civilian oversight agencies are typically categorized as one of three oversight models: investigation-focused, auditor/monitor-focused, or review-focused. For more information about models of civilian oversight, please see NACOLE's report "Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement: Assessing the Evidence". The report can be downloaded from NACOLE's website at http://www.nacole.org/reports_publications.

    Contemporary oversight agencies often utilize one general approach to oversight, and may take on additional oversight functions outside the traditional definition of their general approach.The first question asks how your agency would be primarily categorized. This is based off the functions your agency spends most of its time conducting. The second question asks whether or not your oversight agency conducts any additional oversight functions. Please select all that apply, including the option most similar to your selection in the first question.

  • The general approach of our oversight agency is:*
  • Please indicate any additional oversight functions your agency performs (Check all that apply, including the option that corresponds best to your response to the previous question.):*

  • Staffing and Personnel

    The following set of questions ask about staffing in your oversight agency. Staff titles vary across agencies, so please respond to each question with the position that best matches the functions and roles within your office. Some staff perform multiple roles within their oversight agency. If this is the case, one staff member can be counted more than once if their day-to-day duties span across multiple positions. The counts for paid staff in each position does not need to add up to the total number of paid staff response in the following question.
  • Does your oversight agency have legal counsel?*

  • Please approximate the number of paid staff in the following positions.

  • Are current or former sworn law enforcement members permitted to work as staff at your oversight agency?*

  • Boards and/or Commissions

  • Does your oversight agency have a volunteer board and/or commission?*

  • Boards and/or Commissions

  • How are board/commission members appointed?*
  • Are former law enforcement members permitted to serve on the board/commission?*
  • Are current sworn law enforcement members permitted to serve on the board/commission?*
  • Are board/commission members eligible to receive stipends?*
  • Do board/commission members receive training on department policy and procedure?*

  • Scope of Authority & Operations

  • Does your oversight agency have the ability to receive, investigate, or issue findings on anonymous complaints?*
  • Are affidavits or notarized statements required to receive, investigate, or adjudicate a complaint?*
  • Rows
  • Is the department you oversee required to formally respond to any of the recommendations issued by your agency?*
  • Rows
  • Rows
  • Is the performance of your oversight agency evaluated by an external stakeholder?*
  • Does your oversight agency have a mediation program?

  • Access to Information

    The following set of questions will be used to characterize the amount of information your oversight agency has access to in order to conduct its work.

  • "Yes" responses indicate that your board and/or agency has reliable and consistent access to a particular set of information. This level of access is usually formally codified in either law or agreement with the overseen law enforcement agency.

    "No" responses indicate that your board and/or agency is not permitted to access a particular set of information.

    "Sometimes" responses indicate that your board and/or agency is permitted to access a particular set of information only at particular times during its work, and usually does not have reliable or consistent access to said information otherwise.

    If your agency is not allowed to publicly disclose the type of information it has access to, please use the "N/A" option.

    Some examples of instances in which a "sometimes" response is most appropriate:
    - A board/commission may only have access to the personnel file of an individual officer when deliberating and adjudicating a complaint.
    - Access to certain types of information is informal and relationship-based, i.e. not formally codified by law or agreement.

  • Rows
  • Rows
  • Does your access to any of the information above depend on the cooperation of the law enforcement agency overseen?*
  • Does your agency have the right to issue subpoenas?*
  • Does your agency have the authority to be present on-scene following an officer involved shooting, in-custody death, or other major uses of force?*

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