Culture of the LAPD
Culture of the LAPD
The commission’s investigation extended into many areas of the LAPD’s practices and procedures, focusing not only on how the department handled complaints against officers, but also on recruitment, promotion, training, and internal communications. Interviews were held with personnel of different ranks and backgrounds; statistics were gathered on the makeup of the police force in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity; logs and recordings of police patrols were examined; and experts were consulted to provide a greater depth of understanding on aspects of policing. A report submitted to the commission by criminologist L. Reed Adams, who had been employed as the LAPD’s training administrator in the 1980s, described an organizational culture infected by discrimination and resistant to change. Racism and sexism, in particular, were highlighted by Adams and were areas of focus in the wider investigation.
