August 02, 2017
In an effort to promote transparency, the city of Philadelphia will begin making civilian complaints made against police officers available online.
Previously, members of the public or media had to go to the Internal Affairs Bureau to view such complaints in person. But starting Nov. 1, allegations of police misconduct will be posted in data sets on a city website.
“Everyone who works for the City of Philadelphia is a public servant, and the public deserves to know we will take their complaints about any City service seriously," Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement Tuesday after signing the executive order.
Last year, the city began posting the salaries of all city employees online in a data set that's updated every three months.
With this latest open-data push, Kenney said he hopes to increase "community-police trust."
"This data will show residents in an easily accessible, online format how the City handles complaints against police officers," Kenney said.
The online postings will include a summary of the complaint, the district it was filed in, its complaint classification and any other information determined by the police commissioner to be appropriate.
Some information may be redacted to protect the parties involved.
The mayor's office said by early 2018 it plans on having three years of previous data online.
