Lakewood Police Department
Policy and Procedure
Records Release - Confidential Reports 		Effective Date: 10/15/2010
Policy Number: PP-7221
  1. CONFIDENTIAL HIGH PROFILE REPORT MANAGEMENT 
    1. Policy

      The Police Records Manager shall provide enhancement of security for confidential, high profile reports. Additional management procedures will be followed for all approved reports to provide protection from unauthorized access to highly sensitive information. An annual review of authorized reports shall be conducted to determine the continued requirements for the confidential maintenance of these reports. 
    2. Procedure
      1. High profile reports include Grand Jury Cases, criminal investigations of current city personnel,  cases in which a current city employee is a victim/survivor, or reports containing sensitive homicide or on-going high security investigative information. These reports shall be processed in the same manner as all other police reports, in accordance with policy and procedure and current laws governing their management, and will include the addition of enhanced access protection from unauthorized examination. 
      2. With the appropriate approval of the Division Chief, the computer report will be secured through the use of Security Privileges of the computer system.  With this security in place the report will be completely secured and available by request only to the investigator/ agent assigned to investigate the case, or other personnel so authorized on the signed "Confidential" request form  upon his/ her request.  The Record's Manager will be responsible for initiating and releasing the computer security, based upon the above guidelines. 
      3. A computer generated hard copy of the case will be submitted to the Records Section Manager and shall be flagged as "confidential". 
      4. The entire report, will remain secured, until such a time that the report is determined to no longer meet the need for high confidential status. 
      5. The original report will be maintained in a locked file cabinet labeled "confidential reports."  The case report number will be clearly listed on the outside of the file cabinet for easy identification. 
      6. The release of the "confidential report" must be approved by the Records Manager in conjunction with the appropriate Division Chief. 
      7. An annual review of all "confidential reports" shall be conducted by the Records Manager, in conjunction with the appropriate Division Chief(s), to determine the necessity for the continued maintenance of the report pursuant to these procedures. 
  2. LIMITATIONS ON VIEW AND PRINT PRIVILEGES OF COMPUTER FILES RELATED TO CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AS DICTATED BY STATE STATUTE
    1. Policy

      The Police Records Manager shall provide the necessary security to assure that unauthorized access to agency computer files is denied.  Management procedures will be followed to provide control for the viewing and dissemination of criminal reports related to Felony Crimes against Persons, Child Abuse and Neglect, Mental Health Holds, and other criminal events as determined by management through computer system privilege.
    2. Procedure
      1. Based upon predetermined system privileges, designated statutes will be determined to be available for viewing and/or printing by designated employees only.  On a daily basis a computer program will be initiated which will automatically assign reports to the "Secure Group" based upon the offense classification.  The Secure Group shall include Police personnel, who, as part of the  hiring process have completed a polygraph and criminal background examination.  Based upon these hiring criteria, and the individual's work functions, permissions to the various modules and computer information will be determined and if feasible, granted. Judicial personnel from the Lakewood Municipal Courts and City Attorney's Office who require the reports for prosecution will not be part of the secured group, and will have r access to reports based upon the offense classification which will include those offenses codified in the Lakewood Municipal code.  All other access to computer information will be determined on a need to know basis, and assigned accordingly or disseminated manually. 
      2. With the use of the computer security group, users that access a secure record will be alerted by a "secure" flagging on that record.  This "secure" flag will not hamper the normal entry and use of that report by users as designated to be part of the "Secure Group."   Users of the "Secure Group," can print the report and following the computer dissemination report, distribute the secured report according to Criminal Records Release Laws and Policies of the Lakewood Police Department. 
      3. Users of the system that are not included in the "Secure Group," will receive a notification that the record is "not found" upon attempts to query various secured reports. 
    3. Rule
      1. Information obtained from these reports shall be for official use only and shall not be used for personal information references.   Release of said records must be in compliance with the "Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act."
      2. All other elements of the standard Records Management procedures shall be followed.