CLPEX Chat Board

I was looking through the news yesterday and saw this article about the Deputy Director of the Denver Crime Lab stepping down amid allegations of fraud.

From the article:

The investigation also said seven employees claimed Greene “altered their crime scene reports, sometimes without their knowledge and with terms they would not use.”

Several of the employees told investigators they complained to Greene about the process but Greene insisted on keeping the changes. One employee who refused to change her reports said Greene reportedly labeled her as “insubordinate.” The investigation said Greene admitted changing crime scene reports “because you (Greene) worked for the DPD for years and know how reports should be handled.”

I looked up their ANAB Accreditation Certificate, which is good through 2019.

While it appears the scope of this incident is limited to the crime scene unit and not latent comparisons specifically, obviously crime scene evidence recovery and documentation can poison the river upstream so to speak and cause a host of problems downstream for the rest of the process.

I've always thought of the examiner as the ultimate the reaganomics consumer of the criminal justice system. Everything from policy to training to publication trickles down to us and sometimes we're asked to proselytize to the public. Therefore we have to be the most skeptical and critical when adopting and accepting, hence the skeptical nature of my posts. And to refresh our memories, we've dealt with it personally here on the board. When something coming down from 'on high' doesn't smell all that holy, it's our credibility that takes the hit. You can see that sentiment in another article which states:

The investigation also reported seven employees claiming Greene altered their crime scene reports, sometimes without their knowledge. The employees told investigators their concern was truthful testimony in court.

That being said, my question(s) for the board are something like:

• Does/Should accreditation include an agency to define and train on whistleblowing?
• Should accreditation audits promote themselves as a neutral third party for whistleblowing complaints?
• Should accreditation audits have found a problem that was seemingly as pervasive as this?
• Is this something that Denver should lose accreditation over?

Feel free to tackle any or all.

The Whistleblower's Dilemma

Rarely do you hear of a whistleblower celebrated from the get-go as a hero. Rather, you hear about cases of retaliation of the worst sort. So the poor schmuck contemplating whether to do the "right" thing and report malfeasance has to ask him/herself whether the cost is worth the trouble, or whether any change would even occur if a report was made.

There is the ethical obligation to one's spouse and children, to one's parents, to the mortgage holder and other creditors, etc. To whom do you have the strongest ethical obligation? If you blow the whistle and get fired for your efforts, how do you feed your family and pay the rent or mortgage? Can you ever recover in your career once you have that blot on your resume? Or do you start a new career in the fast food industry?

I have a friend who reported coworkers for dry labbing. My friend was let go as a troublemaker. The dry labbers were not even disciplined, although they eventually moved on.

For a single person with strong ethics and no potential collateral damage, whistleblowing may be an easy decision. But I can understand why so many people are reluctant to take that step. That is the "Whistleblower's Dilemma." Google it.

It's funny you mention that, because a co-worker and I were talking about it and they were discussing a point in time where they were working at a different location and some shady practices were going down. The dilemma there was that they were still on probation which, to your point meant going down to HR to get your walking papers.

Upon doing a little reading on the topic, I found this study
, which framed whistleblowing as a tension between loyalty and fairness. That is interesting in light of the Kofoed thread I linked to in the original post because that very issue was raised.

I also know that whistleblowing can turn into a full time job and have the appearance of a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, which also to your point doesn't pay that well.

Boyd Baumgartner wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2017 7:28 ama tension between loyalty and fairness

In his research into morality differences between liberals and conservatives, Jonathan Haidt detected significant differences in a number of moral/ethical dimensions. For "loyalty," conservatives rate higher than liberals. In "fairness," liberals rate higher than conservatives. I would expect a serious liberal to be more likely to blow the whistle on wrongdoing in an organization than a dedicated conservative.

Anyone interested in learning more should see Haidt's book, "The Righteous Mind."

While I don't recall the exact details, I do know that DPD CL went through some major changes a few years ago. The biggest? Convert it to an all-civilian section. I think this meant that all sworn positions would have to resign their commission to remain in the CL or else they would get transferred or offered early retirement (meeting eligibility requirements, I'm guessing).

I am pretty sure Greene was sworn at one point and became a civilian to take the deputy director position. Perhaps there was too much Type A lingering that was causing these issues?

I once was a newbie in a lab with predominantly older people and I know it's got to be tough on the old dogs seeing young people come up, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to take on the world. Perhaps this re-organization also created some riffs between the no-longer sworn and the newly hired non-sworn. Again, just guesses but I have some experience with this.

I don't think DPD should lose their accreditation. As long as they were following their own policies to reduce undue influence and document what was happening, accreditation and standards cannot protect from one bad employee. LE agencies have numerous links in the chain of command; I have to believe the good employees of the DPD CL were able to utilize those links to report (whistleblow) any issues and it appears that it was handled. ISO 17025 has a section on complaints (both internal and external, Sec. 4.8). Employees should be able to follow-up with management regarding complaints and I hope that this was done in Denver.

During accreditation visits, I think they can serve as a third party but that means that things may go unreported for years before another audit. Rather, I think that accred. organizations (ANAB, A2LA, etc.) should begin to offer training in how to deal with these types of issues.

We cannot rely solely on accreditation to catch everything; an organization is only as good as its people. I've heard stories from assessors that were doing an on-site assessment and even though that organization has written policies and procedures, no one was following them. From the outside, they looked great but during an audit, they weren't following what they said they were doing. In this case, an audit did catch the problems but there was a significant time frame that transpired before they were caught.