By Hank Russell
The Justice Department announced the successful completion of an agreement between the agency and the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD).
The agreement – into which both parties entered in 2014 — called for the SCPD to improve bias-free policing, increase community engagement, and develop additional policies and training, among other things. With support from the Justice Department, as set forth in a report issued on August 12, the SCPD has now achieved sustained substantial compliance with all of the agreement’s terms.
SCPD implemented language assistance policies and deployed resources to ensure that people with Limited English Proficiency have meaningful access to police services. It improved reporting and supervision throughout the department. It also improved policies, training, and tracking to better handle hate crimes and misconduct complaints.
In a letter to Suffolk County Attorney Christopher Clayton, Laura L. Cowall, deputy chief of the Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights, wrote, “We appreciate SCPD’s work in meeting the terms of our Agreement and are confident that SCPD will build upon these accomplishments in providing effective law enforcement for the citizens of Suffolk County.”
According to the report, the SCPD “has improved the quality and consistency of its traffic-stop data. Supervisors appear to be conducting quality-assurance checks on officers’ reports to ensure the accuracy of the data.” The law enforcement agency also released a report back in February which found “no racial bias” in traffic stops “during the day compared to night.”
The SCPD also made changes to its policies requiring supervisors to review a random sample of body-worn camera videos for calls that dispatchers flag as requiring language assistance. The Justice Department report said this “ will allow SCPD to comprehensively monitor compliance with its language access policies.”
Lastly, the report found the SCPD’s website provides access to Spanish-language speakers. Virtually all forms on the website are available in Spanish. Forms are also available in other languages, including Chinese, Haitian Creole, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese.
“Suffolk County Police Department’s commitment to protecting the public in a constitutionally compliant way is commendable,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This Department of Justice is committed to collaborating with law enforcement to make American communities safer.”
“The Suffolk County Police Department is to be commended for taking the steps necessary to achieve the objectives of the 2014 agreement with the Department of Justice and our Office,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. for the Eastern District of New York. “Policing in Suffolk County has been enhanced and become more responsive to community needs. The partnership between our Office and the SCPD has strengthened the safety of all residents of the County.”