The Citizens Police Oversight Commission (CPOC)’s Audit and Monitoring Unit has been assessing completed police misconduct investigations by the Philadelphia Police Department’s (PPD) Internal Affairs Division (IAD). Through reviewing these cases and recommending improvements, CPOC hopes to help build more public understanding and trust in the process.

Read the full report about the first group of audits completed by the Auditing and Monitoring Unit.

Philadelphia Police Department misconduct investigations have not been subject to outside reviews before. Often, the public does not trust the investigative process and expresses concern that officers investigating other officers may not conduct fair investigations.

Complaint audits provide rich data that could lead to various outcomes, including understanding which neighborhoods experience or report misconduct most frequently, and how to make IAD investigations more consistent so that residents and officers alike can benefit from additional procedural fairness.

According to CPOC’s assessments, parts of IAD investigations that are going well include:

• Clear investigative reports
• Investigators interviewing all PPD witnesses involved in complaints
• Generally logical findings

Areas of concern for further review include:

• Cases which miss significant allegations in the investigation’s conclusion
• The lengthiness of the IAD investigative process (note: PPD reports significant improvements to their timelines since these audits were done)

As more audits are conducted and more data about Internal Affairs investigations is collected, the

Auditing and Monitoring Unit will continue to send reports to PPD about the unit’s findings. Through sharing the results of case audits, CPOC hopes to open a dialogue with the PPD about areas for focused improvement in the Internal Affairs investigation process. CPOC looks forward to collaborating with PPD in ensuring that police misconduct investigations in Philadelphia are as thorough and impartial as possible.

The ultimate goals of auditing are to bring more transparency to the PPD Internal Affairs investigation process, pinpoint areas for improvement, enforce investigative best practices, and to build trust between the residents of Philadelphia and the investigators assigned to their complaints. CPOC hopes through this report that the community will better understand CPOC’s work in auditing Internal Affairs investigations.