Title
Recommendation to Authorize Updates to the Existing Alameda Police Department Policy Manual to Conform to Best Practices and to Ratify Policies that Have Been Updated Pursuant to Legal Updates, Significant Liability Issues, and Imminent Safety. (Police 10031100)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jennifer Ott, City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City of Alameda (City) Police Department (APD) remains committed to the timely adoption of sound policies and procedures so it can deliver procedurally just service that aligns with best practices and industry standards. To effectively accomplish this:
• APD contracts with a policy development company (Lexipol) to generate, retain, update, and publish the APD policy manual. Part of the contract includes periodic review and revision of the policy manual to reflect current best practices, emerging case law, and new legislative changes/mandates; and
• In addition to Lexipol, APD further engages in regular reviews and proposes policy modifications when operational changes occur or when the need for new internal procedures are identified. This report provides recommended changes to various policies based on legal developments and/or recommended best practices.
This report provides recommended changes to various policies based on legal developments and/or recommended best practices.
BACKGROUND
Before Lexipol, APD operated on a set of General Orders that functioned as a policy manual for APD. At that time, APD and the City Attorney’s Office were solely responsible for:
• Monitoring evolving best practices.
• Staying abreast of relevant new case law and changes in legislation.
• Updating and modifying the General Orders to include new best practices and laws; and
• Printing and disseminating updated/modified General Orders to APD personnel.
This time-consuming and cumbersome process required a tremendous amount of City resources.
Approximately 12 years ago, APD entered into an agreement with Lexipol to create, maintain, update, and publish a policy manual. Lexipol is a risk management company that specializes in the creation of electronic public safety policy manuals. Lexipol effectively serves approximately 8,100 public safety agencies/municipalities by:
• Reviewing legislative and regulatory changes that impact operational services. On average, Lexipol reviews about 9,000 changes every year to ensure the policy manuals it manages stay current and comprehensive.
• Pooling resources so its clients are able to obtain their policy manuals from a single source in an easily changeable electronic format that allows for near real-time policy manual updating and instantaneous notification to employees of updates; and
• Working with subject matter experts in policy development.
In short, using Lexipol has resulted in APD’s policy manual remaining more up-to-date, more easily accessible, and constantly reviewed by industry experts outside APD.
Although APD works with Lexipol for policy development and updates, APD has the ability to use Lexipol recommendations as a baseline to create a more restrictive policy for implementation into operations.
On September 20, 2022, City Council provided direction to staff to continue bringing policy updates/changes to the APD policy manual to the City Council for review and confirmation. However, City Council authorized the Chief of Police to make applicable updates/changes to the policy manual that would be valid and enforceable immediately if they fell into one of three categories:
• Legal updates,
• Imminent safety issues, and
• Liability issues.
All policy updates/changes outlined in this report fall into those categories and are already being implemented.
DISCUSSION
The following APD policies required updating:
310: Officer-Involved Shootings and Deaths
This policy update is an internal recommendation to align language with Policy 450, Portable Audio/Video Recorders.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, page 8):
• The proposed update would set the same standard for the review of video/audio recordings by employees during officer-involved death investigations.
392: Native American Graves Protections and Repatriations
This policy has been updated because regulatory action impacts its content. Federal administrative law sets minimum standards for agency personnel when Native American remains, funerary objects, associated funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony are found. The regulatory action reorganizes the law and updates definitions and citations in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. (See Exhibit 1, pages 10-11)
402: Bias-Based Policing
A review of this policy has resulted in an update to one subsection.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, page 13):
• A correction has been made to fix a code citation.
450: Portable Audio/Video Recorders
This update is an internal recommendation to align with Policy 310, Officer-Involved Shootings and Deaths, and updated categories and retention schedules for body-worn camera (BWC) video files.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, pages 16-22):
• The proposed update would set the same standard for the review of video/audio recordings by employees during officer-involved death investigations.
• BWC categories have been reduced from fourteen to three for efficiency and consistency in retention schedules. A General category was created with the minimum length set at three years for all BWC video files. Felony sex crimes have been added to the permanent retention category (Homicide and Felony sex crimes). Internal Investigations BWC video file retention has been changed from six to nine years.
600: Investigation and Prosecution
A review of this policy has resulted in an update to one subsection.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, page 32):
• A correction has been made to fix a code citation.
702: Personal Communication Devices
Several updates have been made to this policy as part of ongoing quality maintenance of manual content.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, pages 33-37):
• Content has been updated to clarify circumstances when the Department may access personal communication devices.
• In the updated sections, punctuation and grammar have been corrected, and gendered pronouns have been removed where appropriate.
• The Guide Sheet has been updated.
1004: Special Assignments and Promotions
This update is an internal recommendation.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, page 38):
• A spacing issue was corrected, and the one-year Chief’s extension for Special Assignments was removed. The extension length would be at the Chief’s discretion, capped at six years total, based on the needs of the department.
1010: Reporting of Employee Convictions
This policy has been revised as part of ongoing quality maintenance of manual content.
Changes to this policy include (See Exhibit 1, pages 40-42):
• The policy title has been changed from Reporting of Employee Convictions to Reporting of Arrests, Convictions, and Court Orders, to better reflect the content in the policy.
• In PURPOSE AND SCOPE, content has been updated to better reflect the contents in this policy, and some content has been moved to REPORTING.
• POLICY has been added as a new section to ensure consistency with other policies in the manual.
• DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONVICTIONS, OUTSTANDING WARRANTS AND RESTRAINING ORDERS has been renamed DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONVICTIONS AND COURT ORDERS, and content has been updated for clarity.
• The content of OTHER CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS AND COURT ORDERS has been updated for clarity and to require reporting as provided in this policy.
• REPORTING PROCEDURE has been renamed REPORTING, content has been updated for clarity with best practices, and to include some content from PURPOSE AND SCOPE.
• PROCEDURES FOR RELIEF has been deleted in its entirety because some content is procedural in nature, and some content is covered in OTHER CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS AND COURT ORDERS.
• NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS has been deleted as a subsection in PROCEDURES FOR RELIEF and added back as a subsection in REPORTING PROCEDURE, content has been updated to be more concise, and some content that is not applicable to this policy has been removed.
• Grammar and punctuation have been corrected in all updated sections/subsections, and gendered pronouns have been removed where appropriate.
ALTERNATIVES
• Approve the policy updates.
• Do not approve the policy updates.
• Provide staff direction to modify the policy updates.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
There is no financial impact from approving the policy updates from Lexipol. Funding for the Lexipol contract is currently included under the Police Administrative Services Division budget.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
The policy referenced is from the APD policy manual published by Lexipol. See the Discussion section for the policy number. This action conforms with the City’s Strategic Plan, Strategic Priorities Project CS19: “Continue implementing data driven, intelligence led policing strategies to reduce crime, including working with new crime analyst position and incentive program.”
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action does not constitute a “project” as defined in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15378, and therefore, no further CEQA analysis is required.
CLIMATE IMPACT
There are no identifiable climate impacts or climate action opportunities associated with the subject of this report.
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize updates to the existing Alameda Police Department policy manual to conform to best practices and to ratify policies that have been updated pursuant to legal updates, significant liability issues, and imminent safety.
Respectfully submitted,
Nishant Joshi, Chief of Police
By,
Jeffery Emmitt, Police Captain
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Margaret O’Brien, Finance Director
Exhibit:
1. Policy Updates