TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A new database is now online that allows you to quickly check whether or not a Florida law enforcement officer has had any discipline toward their certification.
The state's Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission (CJSTC) oversees the certification, employment, training and conduct of law enforcement, corrections and correctional probation officers. Through the professional compliance process, the CJSTC may discipline individual officers who violate the CJSTC’s moral character standards, which are outlined in Florida Statute and Florida Administrative Code.
The database brings more transparency to the public as they can now see any sort of discipline that has been taken against a law enforcement officer's certification. A moral character violation includes excessive force.
This database comes just months after 10 Investigates spent months trying to examine excessive force complaints in Florida, ultimately figuring out how complicated it was to compile the available data.
Prior to the searchable database, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement kept the records that were available to you once you filled out a Florida public records request. 10 Investigates requested those records back in 2021 as they examined how many officers have been disciplined for excessive force.
10 Investigates also tried to collect data from the law enforcement agencies themselves and found that there was no universal way agencies were keeping it.
“That's the honest truth. It's not easy to find right now. You just got to hope that your law enforcement leaders are doing the right thing,” said Charlotte County Sheriff William Prummell back in October 2021. “I would say we probably don't have a really good standard database that covers all different levels of excessive force.
“ I mean, now we're reporting more or less than anything that results in great bodily injury or death. That's getting reported, but again, it's not being reported by every agency.”
This searchable database includes the records of officers who have received discipline from the CJSTC since Jan. 1, 2012. This database does not contain any information related to discipline an officer received from their employing agency.