Portsmouth provides flawed crime data, audit finds ) 2000, The Virginian-Pilot

PORTSMOUTH -- The Police Department is providing incomplete and inaccurate information to state and national databases that track wanted criminals, missing people and stolen vehicles, according to state police.

The state has given Portsmouth until Oct. 5 to correct the problem or risk being shut out of entering or modifying information in the databases.

The errant record-keeping can cause police to overlook wanted criminals walking the streets. It could lead to innocent people being stopped, or stolen vehicles going untracked. Having wrong information on file can affect ``officer safety nationwide,'' according to an Aug. 17 state police letter to Portsmouth Police Chief Leonard G. Cooke.

State police discovered continuing problems in June, during the latest audit of Portsmouth police records. The state agency found mistakes in the information the department was sending to the National Crime Information Center and the Virginia Criminal Information Network.

Portsmouth is working to correct the problems.

``I spoke with the deputy chief last week and the chief this morning, and I have his personal assurance that everything will be in order by Oct. 5,'' City Manager Ronald W. Massie said Tuesday afternoon.

Law enforcement agencies depend on VCIN and NCIC to broadcast or check information about missing or wanted people and to access the databases of other state and national agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Portsmouth police were supplying incomplete or inaccurate information about people's criminal histories, wanted criminals, vehicles and missing persons, according to the audit.

For example, auditors randomly checked information supplied by Portsmouth police on nine ``wanted persons'' and concluded that ``no entries were found to be in compliance with audit requirements.''

Three people were listed as wanted by police without any documentation that state police could find to justify it, according to the audit. For three other wanted people, police failed to enter correct or complete information.

``If an individual is not apprehended, and he's a violent felon, then certainly he would pose a threat to society and police,'' said Lt. Tom Turner of the Virginia State Police.

Portsmouth police also were submitting incomplete and incorrect information about missing people and criminal histories.

``Courts are consistently ruling that a criminal justice agency has a duty to maintain accurate, complete and up-to-date records,'' state police Capt. Stephen D. Childress wrote to Cooke after the June audit.

Cooke said Tuesday that he added two new positions to the unit and did some restructuring of personnel to correct the problems.

State police are expected to conduct an ``integrity audit'' Oct. 5. If that audit does not produce satisfactory results, state police will terminate the Portsmouth Police Department's ``ability to enter, modify or cancel records'' within VCIN and NCIC, according to the Aug. 17 letter from Childress to Cooke.

To comply, the department must have an overall rating of at least 85 percent accuracy and record no serious errors. It must have a minimum of 80 percent compliance in each individual area, such as missing persons, wanted persons and wanted vehicles.

The last audit revealed at least three serious errors. And the error rate in several areas was well above the 20 percent allowed. For wanted persons, Portsmouth was 100 percent out of compliance; for wanted vehicles, 45 percent; and for missing persons, 42 percent.

``I'm confident with the addition of the new staff and the quality-control measures in place that not only will we be able to meet this next audit, but deal with the challenges in the future,'' Cooke said.

Capt. C.E. Connally of the department's support services division said the review was important. He said many of the errors involved training issues that have since been corrected.

``Certainly, I think it's a fair audit review,'' Connally said. ``If I'm out on the street, I need this information for my safety. These things can get me hurt.'' Suffolk has also had problems keeping records for the databases.

But a July audit of the Suffolk Police Department found that it had improved to 72 percent compliance, up from 60 percent in April.

Suffolk had no serious errors in the July audit, so state officials decided not to bar the department from entering data into the state and national criminal information databases.

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-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), September 07, 2000