Several bodies have oversight over policing in Madison.
Under state statute, the notoriously opaque Madison Police and Fire Commission is tasked with discipline, hiring, and firing of any officers in the MPD.
And by city ordinance, both the Madison Police Chief and the Madison Fire Chief are required to submit reports to and engage with the Public Safety Review Committee, a longstanding city committee.
The most recently created are the police civilian oversight board, and the office of the Independent Monitor, intended to work jointly to investigate any possible instances of misconduct or complaints of the Madison Police Department.
Both the board and the Independent Monitor were two major recommendations borne out of a years-long process to make structural changes to policing oversight in Madison.
So, who do you submit complaints about policing to? Answering questions last Friday after his public safety address, Madison police chief Shon Barnes said he’d like to see the complaint process streamlined.
He pointed to his experience at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in Chicago, where he worked directly before being hired as chief. Barnes says he’d like to see a similar process in Madison:
“One of the things about it is, when a complaint comes it, it comes to one place,” Chief Barnes says. “There are people who, it’s their responsibility to determine where that should be. It’s so easy, it doesn’t require any confusion. If you are asking me how I would do that, I would make one central location where, if people want to make a compliment or a complaint, it would go there, and that person would be trained to determine who’s best to hear this complaint. Because if I feel that I don’t want to talk with the police department, then obviously that should trigger someone else. At this particular time, where would that be? Would it be the PSRC? Would it be the Civilian Oversight Board? Would it be the Independent Monitor, the mayor’s office, or my office?”
A proposal before the Madison Common Council hopes to do just that – dissolve the city’s Public Safety Review Committee, or PSRC, to improve the city’s complaint workflow.
The proposal to dissolve the PSRC was introduced by District 1 Alder Barbara Harrington-McKinney, and it came with little notice at the tail end of last week’s Common Council meeting.
While Harrington-McKinney declined to speak with WORT, she explained during the city council meeting out of a concern that there were now overlapping responsibilities between the Public Safety Review Committee, which has been around for decades, and the Police Civilian Oversight Board.
Matt Giesfeldt, the co-chair of the Public Safety Review Committee, says that he first learned of the proposal to dissolve the committee just days before it was introduced, when he created the agenda for their February 8th meeting. That meeting did not happen because not enough members were present.
District 2 Alder Patrick Heck says that he too was taken by surprise by the proposal, and that he first learned about it just days before last week’s meeting.
Heck says that he isn’t against the idea of combining the two groups, but city leaders would need to figure out how that would work before any action could be taken.
“There are a whole series of things that would need to happen for the Police Civilian Oversight Board to take over any of the PSRC duties, partially because the ordinance that empowers the Civilian Oversight Board doesn’t include those duties,” Alder Heck says.
If the council were to dissolve the Public Safety Review Committee, City Attorney Mike Haas says that its responsibilities would have to be divided by the council.
“There’s a little bit of overlap with the (Police Civilian Oversight Board), so some matters would go to them even if the PSRC was in existence,” Haas says. “Then the council would need to decide if any other matters that would go to the PSRC would go to another committee, or if they are just manners that would not get referred to any other committee.”
For example, the PSRC also checks the Fire Department, which is not overseen by the Police Civilian Oversight Board. If the city wishes to keep those checks in place, they would need to transfer that responsibility to either the civilian oversight board, the Police and Fire Commission, or another city committee.
Haas adds that proposals like grants for the police or fire department would need to be sent to the finance committee anyways, and that each proposal would have to be dealt with on an individual basis.
Meanwhile the office of the Independent Monitor has been quiet in its first months of operation. The city officially hired Robert Copley for the position of Independent Monitor back in December. Since then, the Police Civilian Oversight Board, which works in conjunction with the Independent Monitor, has only met once.
While Shon Barnes says that he hasn’t spoken with Copley much since he took the position, he says that he’s been giving the office space while they get settled.
“We had one meeting,” Chief Barnes says. “It was a nice, cordial greeting. Certainly, he is establishing a new office, he has to hire staff and create processes, so the best way for me to support him is to get out of his way, let him create what he has to create, and then we will circle back.”
Robert Copley did not respond to WORT’s request for comment by airtime.
The PSRC, meanwhile, has been considering a handful of proposals, including an amendment to the police department’s budget to enter into a cost reimbursement agreement with the FBI to help further fund their local Joint Terrorism Task Force, and to abolish curfews in Madison.
The proposal to dissolve the Public Safety Review Committee will go before the council for a final vote on February 28.
Photo courtesy: WORT Flickr
