New public data is helping to shed light on California’s process for addressing police misconduct. Established by Senate Bill (SB) 2, this process includes collecting reports of misconduct, investigating allegations, and decertifying officers who have committed certain acts of serious misconduct. Passed in 2021, SB 2 aimed to improve accountability and transparency after the murder of George Floyd and nationwide protests centered on policing and racial injustice. As the state legislature considers passing new laws related to decertification and misconduct records, we take a look at what the current process has yielded so far.
Prior to SB 2, there was limited information on officer misconduct, particularly from official sources. The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), the agency that licenses officers in the state, was able to render an officer’s certificate “null and void” only in rare circumstances, such as when an officer was convicted of a felony (though at the time, POST had no reliable process for flagging felony convictions among officers). Crowdsourced data provided important insights, highlighting that officers in California were most commonly arrested for assault, but it also had limitations.
After the passage of SB 2, law enforcement agencies must report complaints, charges, or allegations of serious misconduct to POST, which publishes the aggregated data. Law enforcement agencies must also report any officer departure to POST, reducing the possibility of officers committing misconduct and then moving to another agency. There are nine actions that constitute misconduct serious enough that POST may revoke an officer’s certification: dishonesty, abuse of power, physical abuse (including excessive or unreasonable use of force), sexual assault, demonstrating bias, acts that violate the law, participation in a law enforcement gang, failure to cooperate in a misconduct investigation, and failure to intervene when observing excessive use of force.
Since 2023, when the legislation was fully implemented, POST has received over 36,200 allegations of serious misconduct. About 2,100 of these were public complaints directly submitted to POST (as opposed to reports from a law enforcement agency). Altogether, the reports involve about 20,600 officers, as some officers are the subject of multiple misconduct allegations. Roughly half of all reports (17,500) referred to incidents that occurred before 2023. Currently, about 12,500 investigations are still open and 2,600 investigations are unassigned.
Officers engaging in physical abuse comprise the largest share of misconduct allegations at around 33% each year; the share of physical-abuse allegations are even higher for cases that were submitted before 2023. Officers demonstrating bias is the second-most-common allegation (slightly over 30%), while abuse of power (e.g., intimidating witnesses, obtaining a false confession, or knowingly making a false arrest) is the third-most-common allegation (just below 20%).
For each misconduct allegation, the relevant agency and POST need to investigate the complaint before determining whether the allegation is credible and merits enforcement. Thus far, 720 officers—out of 82,000 officers currently employed full time in California—have been separated from their agencies, either through termination or resignation. These officers had a total of 920 misconduct allegations against them.
Investigations have resulted in the revocations of over 100 officer certifications and in 95 officers voluntarily surrendering their certifications. Further, POST has identified around 125 officers who have a felony conviction, were erroneously issued a certificate, or engaged in fraud to obtain one—rendering them ineligible to serve as officers. In addition, there are 164 officers who have had their certifications temporarily suspended as their cases are being investigated.
As POST and law enforcement agencies investigate the open cases, these enforcement numbers may grow. At the federal level, the Trump administration recently ended federal investigations and lawsuits involving alleged misconduct within local police departments. These forms of government oversight and accountability have been effective in some cases but have their own limitations. Meanwhile, some local jurisdictions continue to press ahead with reforms. As the state legislature considers modifications to increase transparency into personnel records (Assembly Bill 847, AB 1388) and limit what may be considered a decertifying action (SB 734), it will be important to track how these policy changes affect policing in California.
