Agency Transparency

Order 505 establishes JSO’s policy for proactively releasing information to the public. JSO states that transparency is necessary to earn and retain public trust and that the agency will continuously share information of concern to the public.

The policy identifies certain materials that JSO intends to release without requiring a member of the public to first submit a public-records request.

This distinction is important. Public records laws generally concern information that a person can request. Order 505 instead describes information that JSO has decided should be made available proactively.

One of the strongest aspects of Order 505 is the existence of the policy itself.

Rather than relying entirely on public-records requests, JSO identifies information that should be published without someone first having to know that the information exists, determine which records to request, submit a request, and wait for a response.

Proactive publication can make government information substantially more accessible because members of the public do not need specialized knowledge of agency records to obtain it.

The policy also establishes a public-facing Open Data and Transparency website as the central location for much of this information.

JSO states that its transparency website contains homicide statistics, information sheets, certain agency policies, annual Open Data Reports, officer-involved shooting data, and other reports concerning agency performance.

Creating one location for this information is a strength. It makes the agency’s published data easier to locate and gives the public a predictable place to look for new information.

However, the policy does not require JSO to publish all agency policies.

Instead, JSO publishes policies that are “frequently requested and/or are related to popular topics.”

This leaves JSO with considerable discretion over which policies are proactively available.

A policy may be important for public accountability even if members of the public do not yet know enough about the policy to frequently request it. A policy governing an obscure internal process may become important only after a particular incident brings that process to public attention.

As written, Order 505 allows public interest itself to partly determine what information becomes publicly accessible.

The decision to publish only frequently requested policies or policies concerning popular subjects is one of the more significant limitations in Order 505.

JSO already maintains a Written Directives System containing agency policies. Order 505 does not state that the full Written Directives System should be available through the transparency website.

As a result, a member of the public may be able to readily access some policies while needing to know that another policy exists before requesting it.

This creates an information problem. A person cannot request a policy by name or number if the person does not know that the policy exists.

A stronger transparency standard would make the agency’s policy library presumptively public, subject only to necessary legal redactions.

Order 505 does not establish that standard.

The policy contains relatively strong disclosure requirements for officer-involved shootings.

JSO states that it will proactively release officer-involved shooting, in-custody death, and Response to Resistance incident information within 48 hours.

The information typically includes the date, location, original incident type, case status, involved officers, involved subjects, whether the incident was fatal, and the status of State Attorney or JSO administrative reviews.

A 48-hour disclosure expectation is useful because it creates a relatively short and measurable timeframe.

It also provides the public with basic information about a serious incident while the investigation is still underway rather than requiring the community to wait for the final investigative outcome.

There is an important limitation in the wording of the 48-hour disclosure requirement.

The policy states that the information “typically includes” the listed data.

That language is weaker than stating that the information shall include those fields unless a specific exemption applies.

The difference matters because the policy does not explain when JSO may omit one of the listed items or require the agency to identify why information was withheld.

For example, the policy specifically acknowledges that an officer’s name may be withheld when exempt. However, the broader phrase “typically includes” appears to allow flexibility beyond specifically identified exemptions.

This makes the 48-hour requirement relatively clear while the required contents of the disclosure are less definite.

JSO states that it is committed to releasing redacted body-worn camera footage from officer-involved shootings within 21 days.

This is another meaningful transparency provision because video evidence can provide information that cannot be conveyed through a written summary alone.

The policy also explains that legally protected information may be redacted, including information concerning victims, undercover officers, privileged communications, and active investigations.

The existence of a specific 21-day target is a strength because the public can determine whether JSO met its stated timeline.

The 21-day body-worn camera release commitment contains an important exception.

JSO will release the footage within 21 days provided that doing so does not impact or impair the active criminal investigation.

There may be legitimate circumstances in which release of evidence could interfere with an investigation. However, Order 505 does not explain how JSO determines that release would cause such an impairment.

The policy also does not establish a secondary deadline.

For example, if footage cannot be released on the twenty-first day, the policy does not state that JSO must reconsider the decision every seven days, release the footage when a particular investigative stage is completed, or publicly explain why the footage remains withheld.

The exception therefore has the potential to make the otherwise clear 21-day deadline indefinite.

Order 505 states that JSO will proactively release information concerning the arrest of a JSO member when JSO itself is the investigating law enforcement agency.

The commitment is useful, but it is narrower than it first appears.

The policy does not state that JSO will proactively release comparable information whenever one of its members is arrested.

Instead, the disclosure requirement depends on which law enforcement agency conducted the investigation.

If a JSO member is arrested following an investigation conducted by another agency, Order 505 does not establish the same proactive disclosure requirement.

This distinction is worth noting because the public interest in knowing that a JSO employee has been arrested does not necessarily depend on which agency investigated the case.

Unlike the 48-hour requirement for officer-involved shootings and the 21-day goal for body-worn camera footage, the section concerning criminal investigations of JSO employees does not establish a timeframe.

JSO states that it is committed to proactively releasing the information, but the policy does not say whether that should occur within 24 hours, 48 hours, a week, or after some other event.

The absence of a deadline makes compliance harder to evaluate.

A disclosure made immediately after an arrest and a disclosure made several weeks later could both arguably satisfy the wording of the policy.

JSO states that it proactively publishes Response to Resistance data through Open Data Reports and annual reviews.

The reports include statistical analyses comparing multiple years. They also include information concerning assaults on officers and annual standardized training.

Providing multi-year data is useful because it allows the public to identify trends that may not be apparent from individual incidents.

However, the policy appears to rely primarily on annual reporting for broader Response to Resistance data.

An annual summary can show trends, but it provides considerably less detail than regularly updated incident-level data.

Order 505 does not state that JSO will publish a searchable dataset containing individual Response to Resistance incidents.

The transparency website also contains annual Open Data Reports concerning employee investigations.

Including employee-investigation information is important because internal accountability is an appropriate subject for public transparency.

However, Order 505 gives very little detail about what employee-investigation data must be included.

The policy does not identify required fields, such as allegation type, disposition, employee rank, investigating unit, length of investigation, discipline imposed, or whether a disciplinary recommendation differed from the final result.

Unlike the officer-involved shooting section, there is no detailed minimum disclosure standard for employee investigations.

This means the policy requires the existence of reporting without establishing much detail about the information necessary to evaluate the disciplinary system.

Order 505 repeatedly relies on reports and statistical summaries.

Reports can be valuable because they organize information and explain trends. However, reports are not the same as the underlying data.

When an agency publishes only its own summary, the agency decides which categories to use, which comparisons to make, and which trends to emphasize.

Publishing the underlying data allows researchers, journalists, and members of the public to independently test those conclusions and ask questions the agency may not have considered.

Order 505 does not clearly establish a general requirement that the underlying datasets used to produce JSO’s transparency reports also be published.

That is an important limitation for independent accountability research.

The policy repeatedly preserves discretion for the Sheriff or the Sheriff’s designees.

The purpose section states that additional information may be released when deemed necessary. The officer-involved shooting section similarly permits the release of any other information deemed appropriate by the Sheriff or his designees.

This discretion allows JSO to provide more information than the minimum required by the policy.

That can be useful.

However, discretion to release additional information is different from a requirement to release a defined minimum amount of information. Transparency is easier to evaluate when publication does not depend on whether leadership chooses to disclose something in a particular case.

There is an interesting difference in the language used throughout Order 505.

The purpose states that the policy contains standard materials JSO “shall proactively release.”

However, several of the individual procedures state that JSO is “committed to” releasing information.

For example, JSO is “committed to” releasing officer-involved shooting footage within 21 days, “committed to” releasing information concerning arrests of JSO employees investigated by JSO, and “committed to” releasing certain incident data.

The policy does not explain whether “committed to” carries the same mandatory meaning as “shall.”

For a transparency policy, consistent language would make the agency’s obligations easier to understand and evaluate.

Order 505 includes a section titled Public Relations Materials.

The section identifies monthly award ceremonies, Behind the Badge videos about JSO employees, and community events such as Coffee with a Cop and safety fairs as information JSO is committed to sharing.

These activities may improve communication between JSO and the community, but they are different from accountability-oriented transparency.

An awards ceremony tells the public about accomplishments. A Behind the Badge video introduces the public to an employee. Neither gives the public greater ability to independently evaluate the exercise of governmental authority.

Including these activities in the same transparency policy as use-of-force data, body-worn camera footage, and employee investigations broadens JSO’s definition of transparency to include public relations.

That distinction is important when evaluating the policy. Communication about the agency is not necessarily the same as information that allows the public to scrutinize the agency.

One notable omission from Order 505 is a specific requirement to proactively publish public complaint data.

The policy refers to employee investigations through annual Open Data Reports, but it does not separately require publication of information concerning complaints submitted by members of the public.

For example, the policy does not require publication of the number of complaints received, allegation categories, how complaints were submitted, dispositions, investigation times, disciplinary outcomes, or demographic information where appropriate.

Because public complaints are one of the primary ways an agency learns about possible misconduct, this is an important gap in a policy specifically dedicated to transparency.

Order 505 also does not establish transparency requirements for JSO’s own handling of public-records requests.

The policy does not require publication of the number of requests received, average response times, outstanding requests, fees charged, exemptions invoked, requests closed without records, or other information concerning the performance of the public-records process.

This is notable because the agency’s ability to provide public information is itself something that can be measured.

A transparency policy could make the transparency process transparent. Order 505 does not do so.

The policy requires publication of certain agency policies but does not address historical policy versions.

Historical versions can be important when evaluating an older incident because the current policy may differ from the policy that governed the employee at the time.

Order 505 does not state that superseded policies should remain publicly accessible or that amendment histories should be published.

As a result, proactive publication of a current policy does not necessarily allow the public to determine how that policy changed over time.

Order 505 contains some requirements that are relatively easy to measure.

A 48-hour publication target can be compared against the date of an incident. A 21-day body-worn camera target can be compared against the date footage was released.

Other parts are much harder to evaluate. Terms such as “frequently requested,” “popular topics,” “typically includes,” “deemed appropriate,” and “committed to” leave considerable discretion.

The strongest transparency requirements in the policy are therefore the ones that identify both what must be released and when it should be released.

Where either of those elements is missing, accountability becomes more difficult.

Order 505 is a meaningful policy because JSO has formally accepted responsibility for proactively publishing certain information rather than relying entirely on public-records requests.

Its strongest provisions concern serious use-of-force incidents. The 48-hour incident-data commitment and 21-day body-worn camera commitment create concrete expectations that the public can monitor.

However, the policy defines proactive transparency fairly narrowly. It does not require publication of the complete policy manual, detailed complaint data, public-records performance information, historical policy versions, or the underlying datasets supporting many of JSO’s reports.

The policy also gives JSO considerable discretion over what policies are sufficiently popular to publish, what additional information is appropriate to release, and when investigative concerns justify delaying body-worn camera footage.

Perhaps the clearest distinction in Order 505 is between information JSO chooses to explain about itself and information that allows the public to independently evaluate JSO. The policy includes both, but they serve different purposes.

A strong transparency system should do more than tell the public what the agency believes is important. It should make enough information available for the public to reach its own conclusions.