Hawaii DPS police roster 2023-3-3

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Hawaii Uniform Information Practices Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer employment rosters in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock, the Invisible Institute and other news organizations. Big Local News is a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and helps journalists collect, process and analyze public data.

We are seeking any datasets, databases, and/or spreadsheets sufficient to show the following information regarding every current or former sworn employee of the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, year-by-year, dating back however far as the data exist for:

First name
Middle name or initial
Last name
Unique employee identification number
Star or badge number
Race
Gender
Year of birth
Rank
Troop assignment
Unit assignment
Division assignment (Patrol, Investigations, Support, etc.)
Hire date
Separation date, if applicable
Reason for separation, if applicable

If your certification/roster system contains data elements not listed above, please include them in the response, provided they are releasable under the law. On the other hand, we recognize some of the information we are asking for may not be tracked by your system. If that is the case, we are willing to accept as many of the data elements as your agency maintains. If some records are more readily available, we are happy to receive partial information as soon as possible while the remaining request is processed.

In addition to the data elements listed, we request documentation necessary to understand and interpret the data, including but not limited to record layouts, data dictionaries, code sheets, lookup tables, etc.

Our preference is to receive structured data provided in a machine-readable text file, such as delimited or fixed-width formats. We can also handle a variety of other data formats including SQL databases, Excel workbooks and MS Access. If there are additional formats your agency would prefer to provide, please let us know.

We are seeking this information as a news media organization on a matter of public interest concerning the conduct of government. As such, we ask for a waiver of all fees, if allowed under state law. If fees are necessary to reimburse the agency for actual costs, we agree to pay up to $100. If costs exceed that amount, please let us know before fulfilling the request.

Please send clarifications and questions via electronic communication at any time. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this request.

Sam Stecklow
Journalist
Invisible Institute

Hello

Thanks for the inquiry. A sworn employee means a sworn or commissioned law enforcement officer. It does not include civilian employees.

Thanks

Sam

Hello

Regarding the former employees, you may be aware that the OIP has issued the following opinion: “Without more specific factual justification, OIP does not read this language, as the City suggests, to include law enforcement employees who could potentially receive an undercover assignment at some future date.” U Memo. 11-3 at 4.

Please let me know if the DPS will reconsider this denial.

Thank you