Working PIby Kevin Stonebarger, Analytic Investigations
How many times have you been reviewing a discovery, specifically police reports, and asked yourself: “Didn’t anyone read this before it was finalized?” The answer to that question will likely take you aback: Probably not.
There are multiple factors to this, and I will try to flesh out as many of them as I can and dispel some of the myths of police report writing. Obviously, all agencies are different, but while you review these reports you will find a common thread among them: They commonly contain multiple typing errors, multiple spelling errors, and grammar has been completely lost in the process. Here are some of the most likely causes of those bad reports and an explanation for why such errors are extremely significant to the PI and even to the experts working on the case for the defense.
Training (or the lack of) in the Police Academy Setting
Would it surprise you at all that while I was a police officer and academy instructor in California, I noticed that report writing training generally only occurs in a very small percentage of the academy? If that doesn’t scare you, I will share a story with you. During the early 2010s, I attended a session on the different Learning Domains in the police academy, one of which was report writing. A well-known report writing instructor had come up with a “brilliant” idea on how to better teach report writing by boiling it down to its most basic principles: by making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and having students write about it. As I watched this, I was in complete disbelief. California law enforcement training was some of the best in the US and all we could come up with was making a PB&J?
One day in one of my classes, I decided to test this “training process” and see if the students had actually learned anything from it. I asked one of the secretaries, who the students had seen dozens if not hundreds of times, to assist with my test. I asked her to wear a bright colored shirt and a baseball hat, and while I was teaching my other class, come into the theater style classroom at the main entrance. I had given her a very large, black revolver that contained dummy rounds. She then came into the classroom and “fired three shots” from her revolver and then fled back through the same door. I stopped my class and gave them 30 minutes to write a report on exactly what they saw. It was unbelievable how many of the students missed things like the color of the shirt, the color of the revolver, physical descriptors of the “suspect” or even how many “shots” were fired. More than a third of the class didn’t even recognize the “suspect” even though they had seen her on and off in the academy office for months.
There must be a standardization of training for report writing in the academy setting that involves realistic situations to write about. Leave the PB&J for grade school lunches.
Failures in the Field Training Officer Program
Many field training officers act as if the acronym FTO means “F**k the Others” rather than Field Training Officer. This is a training process where the trainer will tell the trainee to “forget everything you learned from the academy; you are going to do it my way.” “Forget everything you learned from FTO so-and-so” because one trainer didn’t like that particular FTO or didn’t like his/her training methods. This is also done because FTO Officers are not technically supervisors but are required to “supervise” one officer and they get badge heavy. This is to say that the training officers become overly confident and will “lord” over the trainee that they are “in charge” of. I personally experienced this when I moved to my second agency, even though I had nearly four years of experience with my previous agency in a wide variety of assignments.
The purpose of the FTO program is to teach the trainee enough so that they can survive on the streets as a solo officer and also teach them enough “style” from each FTO so that they enact their own “style.” When you are told every 2-4 weeks that you have to start over, by the end of the program you are still back in weeks one or two of the program in report writing because you have had to change your style so many times.
Another technique that is used by FTOs everywhere is the use of “mirroring reports” where the trainee writes a report for a call they handled, and the FTO writes the exact same report for the same incident and then they compare. The issue with this technique is that you are comparing two things that should not and cannot be compared. One is a report by someone who legitimately has no clue what is going on because they are overwhelmed by the job itself and a report by someone who has likely written hundreds of these exact reports. They will never look alike, because they are not alike.
(story continues)
Failures in Supervision
As with the above “forget everything you learned” paradox, every passing time period of 2-4 weeks with an FTO brings a change in supervision during that same time period. They are attempting to expose the trainee officer to the most situations possible in as many environments as possible. Just as the trainee officer was getting used to doing something a certain way and getting somewhat comfortable, the rug is pulled out from under them, and they have to start all over again. If they work for a large agency, they will likely find themselves traveling to different precincts, all of which are run in different ways.
The issue with this system is that once the trainee officer has written whatever report they need to write, it is reviewed and approved by their FTO and then sent to the Sergeant or Watch Commander for final approval. Depending on the type of case and urgency, that report may sit in the Sergeant’s box (whether actual or digital) for weeks. The trainee officer will believe that since the report has not been kicked back to them in a short period of time, that it was a great report needing no additions, subtractions or corrections. Imagine their surprise when weeks later it comes back from the Sergeant and the amount of red pen (whether actual or digital) on it makes it look like the Sergeant was injured and bled all over their report.
The other issue is the polar opposite, where the Sergeant just takes the word of the FTO that they have reviewed and approved the report and takes the stance that “If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me” and signs off on the report without reviewing it. This situation likely happens more than anyone would like to admit. It is caused by the need for one or two sergeants to supervise a large group of officers while they are likely also working on some ridiculous project that management didn’t want to do.
This creates an exponential problem for the trainee when something they wrote about gets some type of publicity by the public, the County attorney’s office or maybe just the Deputy Chief who wanted to check in and see how the new officers are doing by reviewing a report. Instead of finding a polished final product, they find a report that should have probably been written in crayon due to the exorbitant number of errors. The trainee then doesn’t know what to think or do about their report writing and they are placed into a constant state of anxiety about their reports, sometimes for years.
Failures of Management and/or Human Resources
Just about every department these days is short-staffed, sometimes by hundreds or even thousands of officers. If police management isn’t being proactive with the Human Resources department to force them to put on interviews and testing constantly, the issue of understaffed police departments becomes even worse. Add on top of that the extremely long interview and testing process, and the problem continues to snowball.
At one point in time when I was in law enforcement, it was stated that applicants for large agencies like LAPD and the California Highway Patrol could be in the application process for at least a year before they begin any other portion of the testing. After that, there are all of the other tests that have to be administered like the background, polygraph/ VSA, medical and psychological, and if they pass all of those, it would be another year before the officer is out of the academy and able to work as a solo patrol officer. That equates to a turn-around time of almost two years for every officer who leaves an agency. That amount of time can certainly be shortened. However, any shortcuts would cause problems for the agency down the road.
With the low number of officers being hired, the FTOs or Sergeants may not have time to review any of the reports because they are handling calls as well and running around with their hair on fire every night. That is where the new trainee officer falls through the cracks when it pertains to even simple concepts, like report writing.
Myths of Police Report Writing
Not all police officers are bad at writing reports. As an investigator, I have read some very impressive reports from certain officers and agencies. You can tell just by reading the reports and the details that are placed in them that the officer takes great pride in what they are doing. Unfortunately, this type of officer is a very small minority.
Not all police officers go through the training program that I have outlined above. Some have gone to agencies in different states that focus their training process on making trainee officers the best report writers they can be. It requires a lot of hard work and dedication on both sides, but in the end, it is worth it. Unfortunately, the process I have described previously has been around for decades and if there was one thing that is a common thread in law enforcement, it is the phrase “This is the way we have always done it.” I was once told by a seasoned prosecutor that poor police reports lead to bad case law, large civil payouts, a bad image for the officer and/or their agency and suspects who should absolutely be in jail or prison walking the streets freely.
Not all police officers need a college degree to be good at writing police reports. I can say with absolute confidence that my career as a law enforcement officer and report writer was made easier with English classes and classes in other areas required for my degree. There are some who, because they had a good education growing up, or who were previously in a job that required additional writing skills, do not require a college degree. This group of officers is very much in the minority.
Not all police officers who have advanced degrees are going to be good at report writing, either. I have actually witnessed almost the polar opposite for officers with BS, MS or even PhDs: As they become more educated, they begin to put way too much thought into each report and what is produced is a long, jumbled version of something that looks like it could be a police report with some serious editing.
Conclusion
There is no absolute formula for giving police officers the ability to write better police reports. However, there is absolutely a way to make sure they remain bad and keep getting worse: keep doing things the same way we are now, in most instances.
Police officers will always be overworked, understaffed and underappreciated for what they do. Collectively, however, they need to come up with a standard manner to deal with these failures to keep them from duplicating and becoming even worse.
About the Author
Kevin Stonebarger is a retired California police officer with 17 years of experience in patrol, K9 handling, tactical leadership, and narcotics. He spent 15 years as a police academy instructor specializing in firearms, use of force, and controlled substances. Now a Subject Matter Expert in police policy, use of force, controlled substances and impaired driving, he co-owns Analytic Investigations in Maricopa County, Arizona, with his wife, Deborah. He can be reached at Kev@analyticinvestigations.com or by calling (480) 662-9935.
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