During the week of June 9, 2007 KCAMP Administrator, Tom Job, Loss Control Manager, Brandon Mann and KCAMP Board Trustees Rebecca Bossemeyer, Sharon Dimitt and John Calhoon attended the annual PRIMA/AGRiP conference. The conference is an opportunity for those individuals involved in public risk management to learn and network with professionals from across the country. The conference theme was “Risk Management Heard ‘Round the World,” which is especially appropriate considering the global nature of risk management today.

Some of the many conference sessions included the following topics: proactive defense of EEOC and sexual harassment claims; using carrots and stick for effective loss control practices; best practices in pool governance; enterprise risk management for public entity pools; ethics in the public sector; identifying and avoiding exposure to high risk critical tasks in law enforcement; risk management failures in law enforcement; how to navigate the FEMA public assistance program; effective contractual risk transfer and many more. By attending a conference of this nature the staff and governing Board of KCAMP gains valuable knowledge and experience that we bring back to share with all pool members. We are able to learn from the experiences and expertise of others from around the country to better serve the needs we have here at home.

The following are some highlights of important information the group received:

Law Enforcement Issues

• Mobile Video Recordings should be used more often as a training/ supervision tool, both post-accident and randomly.
• Sheriffs can sign up for free emailed legal updates through Public Agency Training Council at www.patc.com.
• The “Memphis Model” is a successful plan for dealing with mental health care issues in jails.
• We should be moving away from “Use of Force” verbiage and policies and towards a methodology of “Response to Resistance”.
• Recent court decisions require that jail intake staff have some level of training to identify mental health care issues, specifically Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
• To manage the risk of handcuffing cases where the arrestee complains of handcuffs being too tight: officers should be trained to use the double lock feature on the handcuffs, be able to use discretion
• for cuffing certain high-risk individuals (elderly, injured, juveniles), and to include in the arrest report the phrase “Checked for fit and double-locked”.
• Tasers should be worn on the weak-side, not the strong-side. Wearing strong-side has resulted in accidental shootings where the officer has grabbed the wrong weapon during the heat of the moment.
• Field training officers should not necessarily be the person with the most experience. We should choose trainers based off of how well they know and do the job, not just how long they have been doing it. Sometimes the salty veteran is teaching rookies poor behaviors.
• Tasers with built-in video cameras are a bad idea; they only show video of the officer tasing the subject, not the behavior that justified the use of force.
• Major liability trends in law enforcement:
• Vehicle accidents (backing, intersections and pursuits).
• Lack of good policies, supervision and training of officers.

Jails:

• Accepting injured arrestees.
• Accepting arrestees who are complaining of mistreatment by the arresting officer.
• Strip searching everyone without establishing individual probable cause prior to the search.
• Not meeting the medication needs of inmates.
• Not segregating minors from the rest of the jail population. A higher standard of care exists.

Employment Issues

• Employment lawsuits have increased by 2,200% over the last 15 years.
• Performance evaluation forms should be specific to the department and job type, rather than one generic form for the entire County. Office personnel should have one form, law enforcement another, road & bridge another, etc…

Background Checks:

• Every employer has the obligation to exercise “Due Diligence” in their hiring practices. An employer who hires someone that they knew or should have known was dangerous, unfit or unqualified for the work can be sued for negligent hiring.
• Up to 40% of resumes contain material lies or omissions about education, past jobs or qualifications.
• Gut instinct, the “feel” for someone when you interview them, is not sufficient screening. Studies show that even trained law enforcement officers can detect lies only slightly better than 50% of the time.
• Contrary to popular belief, there is no national database available to private employers to check criminal records or false credentials. The primary method for checking criminal records is to check at each relevant courthouse.
• The Fair Credit Reporting Act addresses consent issues dealing with the release of information. Your applicants should sign a release of information form that complies with the requirements of the FCRA prior to a background investigation.
• Remember to treat all similarly situated applicants the same. If you do a background check for a janitor, then you must do one for all janitors. The extensiveness of the background check should be proportional to the position: more detailed for high-risk, safety sensitive positions.
• Aside from very limited circumstances (such as domestic violence convictions for law enforcement), criminal convictions cannot be a stand-alone reason for denying employment. In order to deny employment based on criminal history, the offense must be related to the safety of other
• employees and the public or related to the security of the employer’s operations.
• Normally a credit report is not a valid background check tool, unless you can articulate the jobrelated reasons why a credit report is a valid predictor of job performance. If you are hiring a finance director, a credit report would be an appropriate tool.
• As a general rule: find out where an applicant has lived for the last seven years and search the criminal databases at the County Courthouse where they have lived during that time. Same thing applies to past employers.
• Document your efforts during the background check. This establishes due diligence and is your DEFENSE against negligent hiring lawsuits.