Mayor Bronin Proposes Subpoena Power, Stronger Authority For CPRB

Published on July 01, 2020

HARTFORD, CONN (July 1, 2020) – Today, Mayor Luke Bronin released a set of draft reforms to the City of Hartford’s Civilian Police Review Board to strengthen civilian oversight of police, promote fair, consistent accountability within the Hartford Police Department, and ensure that the fact-finding and disciplinary process has credibility with all stakeholders.  Mayor Bronin is discussing this draft with a number of stakeholders and expects to submit a version of these reforms to the City Council for their July 13^th meeting.  Following that submission, the City Council will proceed with the legislative process, including hearings and public comment.  Draft language of the reforms is available here and a summary is below. 

“Hartford has had a Civilian Police Review Board for many years, but these reforms would strengthen that board significantly, giving it full-time, professional staff, more investigative power, and giving its findings much greater weight,” said Mayor Luke Bronin.  “These reforms would build a system of civilian oversight that is more effective and efficient, would make the Civilian Police Review Board more than just an ‘advisory’ board, and would help ensure meaningful civilian oversight whenever complaints are made.  I look forward to working with many stakeholders and with the City Council in the weeks ahead as we work to enact changes like these to the Civilian Police Review Board." 

The draft reforms Mayor Bronin is proposing include: 

• Giving the CPRB Professional, Full-Time Investigative Staff. The draft reforms would create the position of an “inspector general,” who would serve as and manage full-time, professional staff for the CPRB.  The inspector general would be appointed following a competitive selection process.  The inspector general may have a law enforcement background, but can never have been a member of the Hartford Police Department.  The inspector general would report to the CPRB.

• Process to Override Police Department’s Findings of Misconduct. Currently the CPRB's findings are purely advisory, and the CPRB's investigations often are not conducted until after the police chief has made a finding.  The draft reforms empower the CPRB (a) to make findings that must be considered by the Chief of Police before making his initial findings regarding alleged misconduct and, most important, (b) to challenge the police chief's findings through an appeals process in situations where the police chief's findings differ from the CPRB's.  

• Subpoena Power. Currently, State law does not allow municipal civilian oversight board to have subpoena power.  However, pursuant to a change in State law, the inspector general would have subpoena power as part of investigation of a complaint.  The City will advocate for that change in State law.

• Concurrent Investigations. The draft reforms would have the CPRB, through the inspector general, conduct concurrent investigations into citizen complaints alongside the Internal Affairs Division.  The goal of having concurrent investigations is both to respond as quickly as possible to complaints and to give the Chief of Police the ability to review the findings of both Internal Affairs and the CPRB.

• Quarterly Reporting of Certain Complaints. One of the weaknesses of the CPRB has been an inability to keep up with the caseload.  The full-time staff will help address that.  The draft reforms would also institute quarterly reports to the CPRB of three lesser categories of complaints – slow or poor service, discourteous attitude, and profane language – and empower the CPRB to conduct investigations when an officer has repeatedly been accused of any of those categories of conduct.  The CPRB would retain the ability to investigate any individual complaint of any misconduct.