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Sheriff’s Department Crime Classification Given OK By County Inspector

Sheriff’s Department deputies are not misclassifying crimes, according to an Office of Inspector General inquiry.


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The independent office investigated how Sheriff’s Department officials were classifying crimes, following the news Los Angeles Police Department officers were downgrading assaults.

Related: Antonovich Calls For Look Into Sheriff’s Crime Classification

Supervisor Michael Antonovich called for a closer look in an effort to increase transparency, he said.

The news came amid a report Los Angeles County report supervisors are expected to review on AB 109, a prison re-alignment law passed by the Legislature that took effect in 2011.

“This report reinforces the integrity of the crime reports by the Sheriff’s Department and I applaud the Department for their cooperation and transparency with the Inspector General and the public on this issue,” Antonovich stated in a news release.

County officials were not immediately available to discuss the specific numbers mentioned in the report.

The Inspector General’s report did find that simple assaults are sometimes reported as aggravated assaults, which are subsequently modified by supervisors based on additional evidence uncovered during the investigation of the cases or as part of internal quality control.

The motion was a response to the news Los Angeles Police Department officials incorrectly categorized numerous arrests, county officials said Monday.

“The impetus for (Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s motion)  was the investigation that led to the revelation of the LAPD case where they had misclassified over 1,000 violent offenses,” she said. “The supervisor’s concern was to make sure we on the sheriff’s side are not doing the same thing.”

“Misclassifying or covering up certain crime data is unacceptable and very troubling especially given the significant challenges of Realignment – AB 109,” Anotonvich said. “Police chiefs throughout the state are rightfully concerned about the impact of AB 109 on crime trends in their jurisdiction; manipulating such data is a disservice to everyone.”

County officials also provided statistics on Sheriff’s Department arrests since the implementation of AB 109.

Since “realignment” in October 2011, more than 22,525 have been sentenced to Los Angeles County jails instead of state prison.

Of those, over 5,652 are currently in county jail and of those, more than 530 are serving jail terms of five years or more, according to county officials.

The state has also shifted over 23,491 parolees to Los Angeles County for probation supervision instead of state parole supervision.

More than 30,000 arrests were made involving these parolees. This number exceeds the number of parolees because some are arrested for multiple crimes.

It’s too early to get into the specifics of how the cases would be reviewed, Baker said, adding it will be up to county supervisors as far as whether the results of the office’s investigation would be made public.

“The purpose of the Office of Inspector General is to provide oversight to the Sheriff’s Department, but we are not part of the Sheriff’s Department. “It’s much too early at this point to say anything.”


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Sheriff’s Department Crime Classification Given OK By County Inspector

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About Perry Smith

Perry Smith is a print and broadcast journalist who has won several awards for his focused, hyperlocal community coverage in several different regions of the country. In addition to five years of experience covering the Santa Clarita Valley, Smith, a San Fernando Valley native, has worked in newspapers and news websites in Los Angeles, the Northwest, the Central Valley and the South, before coming to KHTS in 2012. To contact Smith, email him at Perry@hometownstation.com.