As noted yesterday, one good reason not to have elected police chiefs in Louisiana is increased chances of reduced administrative competence complemented by greater confusion when parceling out public safety from other executive functions. But there’s a far more insidious and damaging reason for rejection of that selection method: reduced oversight that makes the office more prone to corruption.
There’s nothing new here; scandals among elected Louisiana police chiefs have occurred all too frequently, unfortunately. Yet recently an alleged wide-ranging scheme only emphasizes the point.
Earlier this month, acting Western Louisiana District Attorney Alexander Van Hook along with other federal criminal investigators announced grand jury indictments against three present and past police chiefs and one marshal (an office itself prone to corruption) and a businessman for a criminal enterprise involving fake crime incident reports over a decade that claimed nonexistent crimes committed against noncitizens as a method to illegally grant these noncitizens legal status in the country. The businessman would solicit money from the aliens to pose as crime victims or witnesses to qualify for the visas designed to aid authorities in criminal investigations.
All others involved were elected to their offices, and even a minimal amount of poking into law enforcement business would have revealed, if not deterred, the scheme quickly. But these are smaller towns and it’s unlikely anybody, not somebody in city government, not a journalist, not a citizen, would be likely to suspect enough to conduct the level of oversight necessary to have caught onto the bilking relatively early on. It seems only a renewed emphasis by the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration on curbing illegal immigration, according to Van Hook’s announcement, led to discovery of the ring.
Using the largest agency and presumed epicenter of the fraud, Oakdale where the alleged businessman kingpin and chief of police and city marshal stand accused, even though the chief was separately elected the financial details are rolled into the city’s comprehensive annual financial report without crime data. And there was no crime data because through 2022 Oakdale hadn’t participated in the Louisiana Incident-Based Reporting System that feeds into its national counterpart that produces the Uniform Crime Report, which could have provided a basis for noticing that any rumors of all these fake crimes didn’t seem reflected in the statistics (although a media source claims it did participate in 2023 and 2024, no aggravated assault figures show up in the UCR for 2023 nor does LIBRS show Oakdale as part of the system that year).
(Regarding the other two municipalities, Forest Hill also didn’t report. Glenmora did, but through the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office which meant its figures weren’t specifically reported. The RPSO appears to have been the agency that blew the whistle.)
Leaving all up to the rumor mill, it’s easy to realize how an elected chief makes discovery much less likely. Interested parties would have made inquiries with a mayor if he appoints a chief that may pique an administration’s interest, but with an elected chief any reporting would have gone to that supposedly corrupt figure where these rumors could be squelched or deflected.
Insulating police operations to some degree from the rest of city governance by having a separately-elected chief, with the city having to trust financial and performance data from someone over which there is no accountability within government, creates greater opportunities for mischievousness. And, to restate, elected figures only have to win votes, not demonstrate competence, to get their jobs, increasing the prospects of a bad egg getting into office.
Louisiana might reduce these chances by requiring local law enforcement agency participation in LIBRS to provide a data point for accountability, but more effective simply would be making all police chief offices appointive.
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