Objective

To assess the extent of implementation of the four recommendations included in our initial audit report, Complaint Processing (Report 2020-N-9).

About the Program

The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) receives, investigates, prosecutes, mediates, hears, makes findings, and recommends action on civilian complaints filed against members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). CCRB has jurisdiction over complaints that allege the use of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, use of offensive language, and untruthful statements—collectively referred to as FADO&U. In 2021, the New York City Council passed Local Law 2212, clarifying that CCRB has the authority to investigate allegations of bias-based policing and racial profiling.

Once a civilian complaint is filed, investigators gather documentary and video evidence and conduct interviews with complainants, victims, civilian witnesses, and subject and witness officers to determine, based on guidance from CCRB legal counsel, whether there was misconduct pursuant to applicable laws and rules. Although CCRB investigators make recommendations to CCRB’s Board on how each allegation should be resolved, the Board decides the disposition of each allegation based on the majority vote of a panel of three Board members. CCRB reported that it received 3,700 complaints within its jurisdiction in 2022 and 5,550 such complaints in 2023—an increase of 50%.

We issued our initial audit report on October 5, 2022. The audit objective was to determine if CCRB had an appropriate and sufficiently documented basis for the complaints referred to the NYPD and other agencies and for truncated complaints, and if CCRB was conducting investigations in compliance with New York City regulations and CCRB’s internal policies and procedures. The audit, which covered the period from January 2018 through May 2021, found that CCRB did not complete investigations in a timely manner and did not have performance measures in place to effectively monitor lengthy investigations. CCRB reported that it took 211 and 248 days, on average, to fully investigate and close cases in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Investigation durations significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, with CCRB reporting averages of 317 and 430 days to fully investigate and close cases in 2020 and the first half of 2021, respectively. While CCRB officials attributed long investigation times in part to NYPD delays in providing information or access to members of service, they did not create effective ways to monitor causes of delays (whether internal or external) in order to proactively address and prevent them. Further, weaknesses in CCRB’s oversight of timeliness of investigations and monitoring of delays could jeopardize its ability to hold officers accountable for misconduct. For example, while CCRB receives automated notifications of cases that are nearing the statute of limitations, given the time it takes to address delays during investigations, these notifications may not occur timely enough for CCRB to effectively address such cases.

Key Findings

CCRB has made some progress in addressing the problems we identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s four audit recommendations, two were partially implemented and two were not implemented.

Key Recommendation

Officials are requested, but not required, to provide information about any actions planned to address the unresolved issues discussed in the follow-up report within 30 days of the report’s issuance.