When the Legislature in 1995 granted police an exemption from a disciplinary disclosure rule that applies to all other government employees in Hawaii, some lawmakers at the time speculated that the special treatment was warranted because it wouldn’t be fair to publicize the names of police officers suspended for breaking strict paramilitary departmental rules that other government employees don’t even face. As one representative was quoted as saying, "You mean to say, just because the policeman did not shine his shoes that we will have to publish his name in the paper?"

That type of fear-mongering hyperbole should have been obvious even then, and the intervening years have only proven how wrong it is for the Legislature to continue to shield the very small percentage of police officers who commit serious misconduct from the public accountability they deserve.

As annual reports to the Legislature show, officers are not being suspended for failing to shine their shoes. They are being suspended for working second jobs on company time, falsifying police reports and ordering subordinates to do the same, running illegal gambling operations, drinking on the job, fraudulently claiming overtime pay, beating suspects, abusing family members and helping colleagues evade possible arrest — to name just a few of the incidents listed in the Honolulu Police Department’s most recent disciplinary report to the Legislature, for 2014.

Absent from the limited summaries are the names of the officers involved, or the stations to which they are assigned. This anonymity makes it difficult for anyone outside the powers-that-be within the police departments to identify repeat offenders or substation trouble spots, both of which would be obvious if the names were disclosed. The secrecy also has the unintended effect of tainting all the officers in the department, rather than only the guilty parties, and deprives HPD of a potentially effective deterrent to some of the bad behavior, namely public disclosure.

All other state and county government employees operate within a disciplinary system that requires their names to be disclosed if they are suspended or fired for on-the-job misconduct, after exhausting their due process appeals. It should be no different for the police; as it stands now, disciplined officers’ names are disclosed only if they are fired.

Police wield higher authority than virtually all other public employees, sometimes deploying deadly force in their roles as law-enforcement officers. Yet they are held to lower disciplinary-disclosure standards than government bureaucrats who exert far less control over the lives of Hawaii’s citizens.

It is long past time for Hawaii lawmakers to correct the mistake made in 1995 and hold all government employees to the same higher standard, raising the professionalism of the county police departments in the process.

Senate Bill 497 provides the vehicle, by repealing the exemption within the state’s Uniform Information Practices Act for police officers that has veiled police suspension records all these years.

Some of the most compelling testimony illustrating why this bill begs for approval comes from a police union leader who wants the measure killed. Tenari Ma‘afala, president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, testified that "release of officers’ names (who) have been suspended may have a chilling effect on the extent of action taken by officers who often have to make split-second decisions." He implies that officers are largely being suspended for their crime-fighting, behavior while seeking suspects or making arrests. But just like the hyperbole expressed in 1995, it does not stand up to the facts.

HPD’s report to the Legislature listed 47 incidents, for which 39 officers were suspended (some officers were involved in more than one case). The primary infraction was not excessive use of force, but what could be described as corruption. Claiming false overtime, exploiting HPD resources for personal use and covering up for colleagues’ wrongdoing were among the infractions.

Chilling the extent of that action is exactly what Hawaii needs.