BOISE, Idaho — The City of Boise is working to implement changes in policing, including changing the Office of Police Oversight into the Office of Police Accountability.
This new office would serve as a leader in civilian oversight and would help resolve resident complaints, audit investigations, and examine potential trends regarding systemic issues within the department.
Ultimately, the city wants law enforcement that is responsive to community needs. The Boise City Council discussed this new office at their weekly work session on April 13.
“I think, given this last week and what’s happened in Minnesota, it becomes even more important that we understand, how do we ensure that our citizens can build trust with our police and our police can build trust with our citizens?” City Council President Elaine Clegg said.
At that work session, city staff presented background, overview, mission, goals and more on the proposed office. City staff also took feedback from council members.
“Our residents value the police, value transparency and are looking for easy and accessible oversight and accountability,” Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said.
The city wants a model that will increase community involvement in oversight and review of police conduct.
“We really want to focus and take a deep dive on the complaints this office gets and the investigation they conduct to see if they have systemic problems or we just have one-time incidences,” Chief of Staff Courtney Washburn said to the council.
The office will be in charge of forwarding any complaints they get to Boise Police Department internal affairs. Once that internal investigation is over, the office will get a chance to review and determine if it was thorough and objective.
The office can also make policy recommendations as needed.
“The new proposed office would have a clear process for if the complaint is associated with the chief of police or command staff of the department,” Washburn said.
If the office succeeds in its role, the city believes that will build trust.
“If a citizen comes to us with a complaint, we should be able to send them to an office where we have confidence that that complaint is going to be fully investigated and our constituents are going to be taken care of,” Council Member Holli Woodings said.
The city is looking for a full-time director for this position and plans on posting the position on Wednesday. Once the position is filled, the office can be up and running. In the meantime, people can still take their concerns to the Office of Police Oversight.
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