Daily News | Some Pa. courts are excluding probation officers from requirements under police misconduct law
This story first appeared in The Investigator, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA featuring the best investigative and accountability journalism from across Pennsylvania.At least three Pennsylvania counties are not checking new probation officers against a statewide police misconduct database or uploading current misconduct records, further undermining a law intended to prevent job hopping by bad cops, Spotlight PA has learned.
But since its inception, the database — once lauded as a national model — has been riddled with loopholes that raise serious questions about its ability to flag potentially problematic officers. There is no enforcement mechanism for those who do not comply, only certain categories of misconduct are tracked, and records are only uploaded to the database when an officer leaves their job — not if an officer receives a warning or suspension and remains employed.
The latest interpretation governing probation officers appears to be at odds with the law, and a spokesperson for State Police gave conflicting information about their status. State Police spokesperson Myles Snyder confirmed that county probation officers “are explicitly given the powers of a ‘peace officer,’” but did not directly state that they are subject to the misconduct law, nor did he confirm or deny the advice of the training commission to courts.
“Not one police department or police chief in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wants to mistakenly hire a law enforcement officer with a history of egregious misconduct,” Carbon County Commissioner Chris Lukasevich said during a January public meeting. “We need to take those actions to ensure it doesn’t happen.”diluted
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