INDIANA police certification 2023-01-13

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Access to Public Records Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock 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 two categories of certification records:

* All certified officers
All law enforcement officers who are actively certified as of the date of this request (or when the request is processed). If your system maintains historical records of previously certified officers who are no longer active, please include them as far back as possible. If correctional officers are certified by your agency, please include them as well.

* Decertified officers
All law enforcement officers who have been decertified through revocations, voluntary surrenders, suspensions or any other actions going back as far as possible. Please include records for decertified correctional officers if available.

Data elements for certified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST or state certification ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence
* Officer’s last/current department or agency
* Officer’s last/current department or agency start date
* Officer’s last/current position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Officer’s previous departments/agencies (employment history), with start and end dates
* Officer’s positions and/or ranks at previous departments or agencies
* Officer’s original date of certification
* Current status of certification (active, lapsed, expired, suspended, etc.)
* Last action taken on certification
* Date of last action on certification
* Disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Dates of disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Training history/additional certifications of this officer, if available

Data elements for decertified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence.
* Officer’s last department/agency, with start and end date
* Officer’s last position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Decertification action taken (revocation, suspension, voluntary surrender, etc.)
* Date decertification action taken
* POST case number, if applicable
* Reason for decertification or similar action

If your certification 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.

Maggie Green
ABC-Owned Television Stations
(901)517-1963

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Access to Public Records Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock 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 two categories of certification records:

* All certified officers
All law enforcement officers who are actively certified as of the date of this request (or when the request is processed). If your system maintains historical records of previously certified officers who are no longer active, please include them as far back as possible. If correctional officers are certified by your agency, please include them as well.

* Decertified officers
All law enforcement officers who have been decertified through revocations, voluntary surrenders, suspensions or any other actions going back as far as possible. Please include records for decertified correctional officers if available.

Data elements for certified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST or state certification ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence
* Officer’s last/current department or agency
* Officer’s last/current department or agency start date
* Officer’s last/current position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Officer’s previous departments/agencies (employment history), with start and end dates
* Officer’s positions and/or ranks at previous departments or agencies
* Officer’s original date of certification
* Current status of certification (active, lapsed, expired, suspended, etc.)
* Last action taken on certification
* Date of last action on certification
* Disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Dates of disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Training history/additional certifications of this officer, if available

Data elements for decertified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence.
* Officer’s last department/agency, with start and end date
* Officer’s last position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Decertification action taken (revocation, suspension, voluntary surrender, etc.)
* Date decertification action taken
* POST case number, if applicable
* Reason for decertification or similar action

If your certification 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.

Maggie Green
ABC-Owned Television Stations
(901)517-1963

Hi Raquel,

Thank you so much for your response, and apologies for the multiple follow ups. I would really appreciate you working on this analysis and Apr 1 is a fine due date. Please do not hesisitate to email or call me (901)517-1963 if you have any questions about my request.

Maggie Green

Good morning Raquel,

I hope you're doing well. I wanted to follow up on my APRA request, originally filed Jan 13, 2023. You previously advised that records would be available in early April--no rush, but just wanted to follow up on when you might have the records compiled. I understand that you are manually creating this report and I really appreciate your help. Please let me know if I can answer any questions you may have.

All the best,
Maggie Green

Good morning Raquel,

I hope you're doing well. I wanted to follow up on my APRA request, originally filed Jan 13, 2023. Please advise when you think records might be available. Let me know if I can answer any questions you may have.

All the best,
Maggie Green

Hi Raquel,

Hope you're having a good week so far. I see from your last response that you expect to have a completion date by the end of summer. Can you please advise whether you think you'll be able to provide all the requested documentation fields, which I have pasted below for ease:

Data elements for certified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST or state certification ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence
* Officer’s last/current department or agency
* Officer’s last/current department or agency start date
* Officer’s last/current position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Officer’s previous departments/agencies (employment history), with start and end dates
* Officer’s positions and/or ranks at previous departments or agencies
* Officer’s original date of certification
* Current status of certification (active, lapsed, expired, suspended, etc.)
* Last action taken on certification
* Date of last action on certification
* Disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Dates of disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Training history/additional certifications of this officer, if available

Data elements for decertified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence.
* Officer’s last department/agency, with start and end date
* Officer’s last position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Decertification action taken (revocation, suspension, voluntary surrender, etc.)
* Date decertification action taken
* POST case number, if applicable
* Reason for decertification or similar action

Thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate you putting together this data in addition to your duties within the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.

All the best,
Maggie Green

Hi Raquel,

Thanks so much for your help with this request! I know it required a lot of manual work from you and I really appreciate it. I was wondering--are you able to send employment history for the officers listed, or should I submit a separate request for that?

Thanks again for all of your help.

Sincerely,
Maggie Green

Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly. I've noted that Indiana uses Acadis to house officer employment history data. Other states that use Acadis, and were able to provide employment history data, have told us that they've used something called the "ad hoc editor" tool to query the report. These states include Kentucky, Wyoming, West Virginia, South Carolina, Washington State, and others. I would be happy to provide examples if that would be helpful.

Thanks again,
Maggie Green

Hi Raquel,

The law you cited seems to actually require ILEA to provide the data we're seeking. It calls for public bodies to "make reasonable efforts to provide to a person making a request for a copy of all disclosable data contained in… any… method of electronic retrieval if the medium requested is compatible with the agency's data storage system." The PAC's Handbook instructs that "an agency that maintains its record on an 'electronic data storage system' must make a reasonable effort to satisfy a request for information from that system."
We know that Indiana's data storage system contains the information that we are seeking, and has the capability to query that data and provide it in an electronic format. We request that you reconsider this denial.

Thanks,
Maggie

Thanks so much, Raquel. Here's an example from West Virginia.

All the best,
Maggie

Hi Raquel,

I hope you are having a nice day. I wanted to follow up to see if your team was able to pull officer employment histories through ACADIS as discussed. Thank you!