Case Study: The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

A distinctive feature of the EI program in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) was the use of multiple indicators: 10 in all. This appears to be the first system and associated evaluation with so many conduct measures. Despite this, the evaluation recommended inclusion of a larger set of measures in order to capture as many misconduct risks as possible. The system also appears to have been distinctive, if not unique, in its reliance on a single form of intervention: supervisor mentoring. Overall, the impacts identified by the evaluation conducted by Bobb et al. (2009) appear quite spectacular, with very large reductions in adverse indicators over 3 years. These included a 92% reduction in lawsuits and an 86% reduction in shootings; also again indicating that EI systems are likely to generate large reductions in repeat complaints against individual officers.