When Rudy Giuliani was elected New York mayor, the city had some 2,200 murders per year, so he immediately hired William Bratton as police chief to completely revamp the department’s culture. Bratton wasted no time. He decentralized the stove-piped NYPD, put more cops on the street and did block-by-block crime analysis, deploying patrols to hot spots. By the end of Bratton’s first year, crime had declined by 12%; in 1995, it fell 17% more shortly thereafter. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage” was Rudy’s mantra, particularly when referring to accountability in a public safety context.

It would then be reasonable to expect that with all the talk I hear about accountability in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), metrics would abound – right?

Unfortunately, in a recent conversation with the Office of Internal Review(OIR) Executive Director Stephen Connely, he asserted that “Accountability means different things to different people,” as justification for the apparent lack of metrics within the OCSD. Worse, as we continue to follow up on a number of cases, these seemed to vanish into a black hole, even when I file requests for information under Government code 6250. Simple minded as I am, I figured that the Goesintos must correlate the Goesoutas, whether when I balance my checkbook, or when a law enforcement agency hands off a case to the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) office. So I started asking questions.

The OCDA’s promptly provided me with a breakdown of the cases the organization has received from over 100 law enforcement agencies in the county. Interestingly enough, the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD)

Breakdown of cases submitted to the OCDA's office by volume - top five law enforcement agencies. Source: OCDA

and the Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD) combined, submit more cases to the OCDA’s office than the OCSD.

The SAPD provided the following: Cases filed (including felony and misdemeanor cases) Jan 633, Feb 593, Mar 774, April 566, May 553, Jun 547, Jul 709, Aug 599. Cases refused: Jan 40, Feb 8, Mar 25, Apr 46, May 32, Jun 48, Jul 42, Aug 50.

The San Juan Capistrano California Highway Patrol (CHP) office total number of arrests and citations that were sent from CHP San Juan Capistrano to the Orange County District Attorney's office were 209 for the period between January 1, 2009 through September 9, 2009.

Whereas the OCSD Captain Christine Murray, responding to a PRA requests for a breakdown of the cases forwarded to the OCDA's office by the OCSD in 2009 writes “ the Sheriff's Department does not maintain a breakdown or list of cases that have been forwarded to the District Attorney's Office. Accordingly, no record exists which is responsive to your request”. Perhaps not surprising that recently an OCSD Investigator was charged with filing false reports. OIR’s version reads as follows: “an investigator allegedly neglected dozens of criminal cases and misrepresented her efforts in order to cover for a lack of sufficient work. When challenged in the context of a very thorough investigation .. the officer failed to accept responsibility and made several assertions that clashed with the evidence. The investigation is complete and OIR has recommended termination; the final disposition is pending”. After all, if you are not measuring, you surely are not managing it, as Rudy might say.

Further, a review of the cases rejected by the OCDA’s office show that the agencies with most cases rejected by the OCDA’s office are the NPBPD, IPD, FPD, OCSD & CMPD. Note that the SAPD, the OCDA’s second largest client records a low 12% reject rate. A logical conclusion is that the SAPD, which appears to be measuring its work, has a low reject rate, whereas the OCSD, which does not seem to use metrics, has a high reject rate, supporting Rudy's assertions.

2009 Cases forwarded to the OCDA's Office by OC LE agencies:  Source:  OCDA

All of this seems to raise  the following issues:

1) The county of Orange is in dire need to rid of the county's Law Enforcement Black Hole. That is, all the law enforcement agencies must use metrics to assure the taxpayer is getting his or her money’s worth. Or as Rudy might say, if law enforcement agencies are not keeping track of their work, accountability is an impossibility.

2) Given the global economic conditions, there is a need for law enforcement consolidation. There is no persuasive argument for Orange County to use more than 100 law enforcement agencies, other than for political purposes

3) There is a desperate need for an eDistrictAttorney initiative - where all law enforcement agencies are required to keep track of cased submitted to and accepted by the OCDA's office.

The good news is that after a brief conversation with SAPD’s Cpl. Gregory Maciha, I understand that some sort of eDistrictAttorney's initiative is underway, perhaps headed by OCDA's Michael Kerr. I am trying to confirm that this is the case, but have yet to do so.