| Mediation in Fiscal Year 2006
In fiscal year 2006, OPC, through its mediation service, the Community Dispute Resolution Center (CDRC), mediated 34 complaints, bringing the grand total to 130 complaints mediated. The parties reached an agreement in 21 of the 34 mediation sessions, and these agreements accounted for 8% of all complaints resolved by OPC through adjudication, dismissal, or successful mediation in fiscal year 2006. OPC made considerable efforts to identify appropriate complaints for mediation and increase the number of mediation sessions, which led to a 79% increase this year. Since the program began, 94 of the 130 mediation sessions (or 72%) were successful and resulted in an agreement between the parties that resolved the complaint. The remaining 36 sessions (or 28%) did not result in an agreement, and the underlying complaints were referred back to the executive director for appropriate action. To date, mediators have helped resolve complaints that allege harassment, the use of language or conduct that is insulting, demeaning, or humiliating, discrimination, the use of unnecessary or excessive force not resulting in injury, failure to provide identification, or a combination of the five.
In addition to the statistical success rate, OPC’s mediation program was recognized and discussed in a recent American Bar Association (ABA) book published to assist police oversight agencies.The publication described OPC’s program and how it compares to others around the country. Participants in the program have also reported positively on the program. A survey of the participants conducted by CDRC indicated that the overwhelming majority of complainants and subject officers who responded found the mediator to be helpful or very helpful, the mediation session to be satisfactory or very satisfactory, and the resulting agreement to be fair or very fair. In addition, 48% of the respondents left their mediation session with more positive feelings about the other party, while only 9% had more negative feelings, and 43% indicated no change in their feelings. Finally, OPC is proactively taking steps to protect the integrity of the mediation process by dismissing complaints and pursuing discipline of officers when one of the parties fails to appear for mediation or refuses to participate in the mediation process in good faith.
OPC has been very pleased with the success of the mediation program, and plans to continue to use it regularly. The main challenge will be to identify enough complaints suitable for mediation to maintain the high number of mediation sessions that the agency held in fiscal year 2006.
As an illustration of the types of complaints that were referred to mediation in fiscal year 2006, the following are three examples that describe the complaint and the mediation session:
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