Audit finds Honolulu Police Department not preventing police misconduct

The Honolulu Police Department does a good job of tracking and investigating police misconduct and complaints, but it does little to prevent them, according to a report by the city auditor.

The Office of the City Auditor reviewed HPD’s policies per a Honolulu City Council resolution passed last year responding to the corruption case revolving around former Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his estranged wife, former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Ke­aloha.

The City Council was concerned that the department’s policies and procedures were insufficient in controlling misconduct, so the city auditor’s office reviewed them and police complaints — both internal and from the public — filed between 2015 and 2019.

The audit noted that Police Chief Susan Ballard, upon becoming chief, wanted to reduce corruption within HPD and restore the public’s trust in police.

But after analyzing public complaints to the Honolulu Police Commission, it said that trust in police might still be an issue.

“The volume and type of complaints may also be indicators of issues beyond the complaints themselves,” the audit said. “Complaints can be indicative of the level of trust the community has in the police department, and areas of concern or opportunities that police department management should focus on for preventive and corrective training.”

The audit analyzed 512 public complaints received by the Police Commission and noted a “heavy concentration of complaints around officer professionalism” and those regarding police use of force.

The city auditor’s office also found that for officers who were fired for allegedly committing a crime, the most common offense was driving under the influence, which represents 22% of those officers. Domestic violence represented 18% of the cases, sex assault was involved in 14% and theft was involved in 11%.

Assault (23%) and harassment (21%) are the most common criminal charges for police suspensions.

But despite the misconduct information HPD has collected, the audit said HPD does not collect the information in a way that allows it to prevent such misconduct.

“We found that changes are only made reactively to incidents, and that information is not aggregated and reported to make responsive proactive changes that could result in prevention of misconduct or reduction of complaints,” the audit said.

Although HPD has a system in place to identify problematic behavior in police officers and is improving training to prevent police misconduct, including rolling out a training program that focuses on ethics and integrity, the city auditor said there are no indications that the department is successfully doing so.

Ballard, in a letter responding to the audit, agreed with the recommendation to use misconduct data to make changes in HPD training, policies and supervision to reduce misconduct, but also said it has started doing so.

She said HPD has amended its own policy to require annual reports summarizing misconduct information. Also, Ballard said police recruits already receive four hours of ethics training while sworn officers receive refresher training courses every two years. Finally, she said training for command staff to identify problematic behavior, via HPD’s Employee Early Recognition program, will start this month.