At the direction of the Long Beach City Council, the city attorney will write a resolution in support of establishing the Law Enforcement Work Inquiry System Registry (LEWIS).
The recommendation—passed unanimously—also calls for the Long Beach Police Department to partner with the University of Southern California’s Price Safe Communities Institute (SCI) to help in the development of the registry.
LEWIS will be a comprehensive, publicly available national database that keeps track of all police officers who were terminated or resigned due to misconduct to diminish their ability to be hired by another department.
Long Beach could become the first city in the nation to participate in the LEWIS registry, which already has support from the University of California system and 37th Congressional District Representative Karen Bass.
According to a Yale Law Journal investigation published in 2020, a study of 98,000 full-time law enforcement officers in Florida over 30 years, found that 3% of officers employed at agencies were previously fired.
Currently, California is one of the four states that allows police officers to keep certification after being fired for misconduct.
In view of this, the registry will let law enforcement agencies have access to data that shows trends and patterns of “potential misconduct casualties,” a City document said.
The database is still in beta testing, but according to a City document, will have its phase one launch in fall 2021 for public use and law enforcement beta phase in early 2022.
Named after the late civil rights leader and former Congressman John Lewis, the database’s goal is to increase the public’s trust of law enforcement and also help police departments in the hiring process.
“The public should know who’s protecting and serving them,” Councilmember Suely Saro said. “We’ve seen the possible outcome of police misconduct, and we should do what we can to avoid it.”
Although advocates have called for police reform and divestment for years, they gained national attention after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020.
In March 2021, the House of Representatives passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which has a provision to create a nationwide police misconduct registry within the Justice Department.
However, the bill has faced an uphill battle in the Senate.
Long Beach included a similar goal in its Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative, which recommends that the City participate in policy changes to establish a nationwide registry.
To aid in this process, Erroll Southers, director of SCI, gave a brief presentation of the registry noting that he became a police officer over 40 years ago “to be the solution” to some of the issues his department was facing.
The registry has the support of some municipal chiefs across the nation. When 360 police chiefs were asked if they supported the creation of a database, 76% said yes, Southers said. Approximately 95% said they would use the registry for their applicant screening process if it was available to them.
The item also received support from Long Beach resident Senay Kenfe during public comment.
“This is a great opportunity to disconnect the good from the bad,” Kenfe said. “I think that the City of Long Beach will be a leader within the restorative justice conversation, as well as opening and repairing and mending some of the poor rapport between the public and our law enforcement.”
Long Beach Chief of Police Robert Luna answered questions brought forth by Councilmember Al Austin about lateral officers—those who have police certification and transfer to another department.
According to Luna, less than 2% of officers who apply to become Long Beach police officers actually enter the department.
“I’d like to think that we have the highest of standards,” Luna said. “We background [check] everybody, we spend 40 to 50 hours just to make sure that you fit our qualifications.”
Most council members spoke in support of the item, with Councilmember Roberto Uranga calling it “long overdue.”
