Authorized by New York City to review complaints against City police officers and recommend potential disciplinary action against them, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is responsible for retaining thousands of documented complaints from city residents. The growing number of documents has made it difficult for CCRB to securely store and safely manage the information.

The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is an independent and non-police mayoral agency. It is empowered to receive, investigate, hear, make findings and recommend action related to complaints against New York City police officers. The complaints allege the use of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, or the use of offensive language and it can be the perception of the act, not just the act itself that can trigger the complaint. Impartial investigations are conducted by the board's investigative staff, which is composed entirely of civilian employees. Dispositions by the board, which may include disciplinary recommendations, are forwarded to the police commissioner.

The Situation

Unlike the needs of much larger companies, the CCRB presents unique circumstances and challenges for secure document storage. Many of the citizen complaints involve sensitive information; and because of the nature of the complaints, the documents must be handled confidentially and appropriately.

In working closely with the administrative staff at CCRB, IMR has been able to provide objective record handling and a cost-effective transfer of sensitive information to microfilm. Microfilming permanently preserves the records so that they can be archived in an easily accessible format that will always be available, regardless of the changes in technology. The transfer to microfilm has not only assisted CCRB with storage issues but with privacy and accessibility as well.

IMR's Response

IMR currently picks up an average of 1800 cubic foot of boxes of records to be microfilmed on an annual basis. These documents represent all complaints lodged in the given time period, along with all supplemental information (cassette tapes, video tapes, etc.) Once IMR completes the conversion to microfilm, the boxes of documents are returned to the CCRB where the canine unit must inspect them before the boxes are allowed back on the shelves. After keeping the original paper documents for a full year after microfilming is complete, the original documents are destroyed.

"I have experience with delivery personnel, and IMR's professionals are very cooperative and flexible," says Brian Connell. "They are willing to come early in the morning to avoid parking issues and have been terrific at taking boxes off the shelves and putting them back on the shelves, regardless of the specifications we make."

CCRB has used IMR since the inception of the microfilming process. Each year, IMR completes a stringent facility inspection as part of the contracting process. In addition to the facility inspection of cameras, indexing equipment and filming, an independent third party monitors the project and draws samples of the microfilm throughout the year in order to verify that the work is of consistent high quality. According to Connell, CCRB has always been satisfied with the quality of film and the competitive pricing IMR has offered.

The overall process is labor intensive due to the sensitive nature of the information. Over 2,000 complaints are lodged each year, and the CCRB is required to store all original complaint files until the case is closed. In some instances, that could mean two to three years of documents and files for each individual case. In addition, all CCRB records must be kept for 75 years, making storage and access somewhat difficult. New York City regulations prohibit the destruction of original files unless they are on microfilm, which is the only approved form of long-term storage for City documents.

IMR's cost-effective microfilm solution has allowed CCRB to manage their voluminous files while providing secure and permanent storage. Because of New York City's regulations relating to the files, IMR's high quality resolution is of extreme importance to the CCRB.

Because cases are ongoing, CCRB does, at times, need access to files, regardless of their disposition. "IMR has been very effective and quite fast at responding to our requests whenever we need a hard copy," says Connell. This makes it much easier for CCRB to fulfill their requests in a timely and efficient manner.