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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:37 am
Time: 3:37 am
Results for law enforcement investigations
2 results foundAuthor: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Evaluation and Inspections Division Title: The Handling of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct Allegations by the Department's Law Enforcement Components Summary: The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to assess how the Department of Justice's (Department) four law enforcement components respond to sexual misconduct and harassment allegations made against their employees. This review examined the nature, frequency, reporting, investigation, and adjudication of such allegations in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and the United States Marshals Service (USMS). The findings in today's report include: - Component supervisors did not always report allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct to their respective internal affairs offices as required by component policies. In several instances, these supervisors were not disciplined for their failure to report. Additionally, at the FBI and USMS, the internal affairs offices chose not to investigate some allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct despite significant evidence that misconduct had occurred, and DEA's internal affairs office did not always fully investigate allegations of sexual misconduct related to prostitution. - At ATF, DEA, and USMS, we found a lack of coordination between the internal affairs offices and security personnel. As a result, security departments at these components were sometimes unaware of allegations that may impact an employee's eligibility to hold a security clearance and access classified information. In contrast, we found that the FBI's internal affairs office alerts the FBI security department to any such misconduct allegations it receives. - All of the components we reviewed either did not have adequate offense tables or did not properly use their offense tables for charging employees with sexual harassment and sexual misconduct offenses. The offense tables at ATF, DEA, and USMS did not contain adequate language to address the solicitation of prostitutes in jurisdictions where the conduct is legal or tolerated. The FBI offense table contains such a category, but we found instances where general offense categories were applied instead of the specific category. - All four components have weaknesses in detecting the transmission of sexually explicit text messages and images by employees. Although the FBI archives and proactively monitors its employees' text messages, there are limitations to its ability to use this information, and misconduct investigators at ATF, DEA, and USMS cannot easily obtain such text message evidence. These issues may hamper the components' ability to conduct misconduct investigations, fulfill their discovery obligations, and deter misconduct. Finally, today's report notes that the OIG's ability to conduct this review was significantly impacted and unnecessarily delayed by repeated difficulties we had in obtaining relevant information from both the FBI and DEA. Specifically, the FBI and DEA initially refused to provide the OIG with unredacted information which the OIG was entitled to receive under the Inspector General Act. When they finally did provide the information without extensive redactions, we found that it still was incomplete. We were also concerned by an apparent decision by DEA to withhold information regarding a particular open misconduct case despite the fact that the OIG was authorized to receive the information. Because of these difficulties, we cannot be completely confident that the FBI and DEA provided us with all information relevant to this review. Our report reflects the findings and conclusions we reached based on the information made available to us. The report makes eight recommendations to improve the law enforcement components' disciplinary and security processes relating to allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment. The DOJ and the four components reviewed concurred with all of the recommendations. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2015. 139p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 2, 2015 at: http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2015/e1504.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2015/e1504.pdf Shelf Number: 135145 Keywords: Child PornographyLaw Enforcement InvestigationsMilitary (U.S.)ProstitutionRapeSextingSexual AbuseSexual HarassmentSexual Misconduct |
Author: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General Title: A Review of ATF's Undercover Storefront Operations Summary: In this review the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) evaluated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) use of undercover storefront operations - an investigative technique in which law enforcement operates a fake business or establishment from a location where illicit merchandise is exchanged or services are rendered. In 2013 ATF's use of undercover storefront operations came under scrutiny after news reporting about a storefront operation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin described numerous problems, including the theft of firearms, improper handling of sensitive information, and the alleged targeting of persons with disabilities. These and other reports about flaws in ATF's storefront operations prompted members of Congress to request the OIG to initiate this review. The OIG examined five ATF undercover storefront operations to: (1) determine whether there are any systemic deficiencies in ATF's storefront policies; and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of ATF's Monitored Case Program (MCP) as an oversight tool for the storefront operations. ATF established the MCP to provide for heightened management scrutiny of the agency's most sensitive cases. We selected five undercover operations that continued or began after the inception of the MCP; these operated in Boston, Milwaukee, Pensacola, St. Louis, and Wichita. The storefront in Boston was mobile and operated from a cargo van. In addition, due to allegations that ATF was targeting persons with disabilities for enforcement action, we examined this issue at ATF's storefront in Portland, Oregon, as well as the other storefronts identified above. Our review determined that while undercover operations can be an important component of ATF's efforts to fight violent crime, ATF failed to devote sufficient attention to how it was managing its undercover storefront operations. It lacked adequate policies and guidance for its agents, and in some cases supervision, necessary to appropriately address the risks associated with the use of this complex investigative technique. Although we did not find overarching problems with ATF's storefront policies as revised following disclosure of problems with the Milwaukee storefront, we determined that ATF should make additional changes to further improve them. We also found that ATF needed to make adjustments to its MCP to better focus on the most significant risks in ATF's investigative operations, including storefronts. We found no evidence that ATF targeted or used individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities in its storefront investigations because of their disability. However, we determined during the course of this review that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had failed to apply Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794, which prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, to its federal law enforcement activities. This Act imposes important compliance responsibilities on DOJ's law enforcement components, which include ATF, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS). When we inquired with ATF and the other DOJ law enforcement components about their compliance responsibilities under the Rehabilitation Act, we found that they lacked policies that addressed the Rehabilitation Act's applicability to law enforcement operations. The OIG raised this important issue with the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and, on September 3, 2015 the OIG wrote to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General to request quarterly updates on DOJ's efforts to ensure compliance with the Rehabilitation Act. The OIG intends to carefully monitor DOJ's progress in meeting its significant duties under the Act. We provided 13 recommendations to assist ATF with its storefront operations. ATF concurred with all of them and has committed to their full implementation. They address the following issues: initiation, planning, safety and security, oversight, intelligence, vulnerable populations, revisions to the Storefront Investigations Manual, and training. In addition to strengthening ATF's policies, improving the MCP, and helping ATF and DOJ to meet their obligations under federal disability law, the recommendations will assist ATF to address three other areas of concern we identified during the review. The first involves predication and targeting. We believe ATF must do a better job in future storefront operations defining the crime problem that the storefront is designed to address and explaining how the strategy underlying it will lead to the apprehension of persons warranting federal prosecution. Our recommendations request ATF to make clear in the storefront initiation paperwork how the storefront will be targeted and how the resulting prosecutions will serve a substantial federal interest. Second, ATF underestimated the level of experience, training, and expertise necessary to manage and oversee its storefront operations, which led to mistakes. Undercover storefront operations are complex and require the management of significant manpower and financial resources. ATF's assignment of inexperienced and shifting staff to run and supervise these operations without adequate Headquarters support and oversight had predictably negative consequences. Our recommendations request that ATF's Undercover Branch designate undercover agents/case agents with significant storefront expertise to work on-scene for the initial period of each storefront's operation to assist with planning, set-up, and early operations; that ATF minimize the turnover of supervisors during the operations; and that at least one undercover agent or the case agent on a storefront team have completed advanced undercover training, including training on storefront operations, before the storefront becomes operational. Third, and closely related to the second issue above, is the problem told to us about ATF Headquarters' historic reluctance to intrude on the domain of its Special Agents-in-Charge. We believe that in addition to supplementing the expertise available for storefront operations, ATF Headquarters units - the Special Operations Division and its Undercover Branch - need to be stakeholders in future operations and provide active oversight of them. ATF undercover storefront operations should not proceed unless experts within these units concur that they are properly designed and are being implemented appropriately. We have included recommendations in our report to encourage this oversight. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2016. 112p. Source: Internet Resource: Oversight & Review Division 16-06: Accessed September 13, 2016 at: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/o1606.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/o1606.pdf Shelf Number: 140265 Keywords: Criminal InvestigationsIllegal GoodsLaw Enforcement InvestigationsUndercover Operations |