Principles for Public Safety Employment

Section 1 I NTRODUCTION Regular areas of concern for public safety agencies include:

 Hiring practices, including background investigations and pre-employment inquiries;  The interplay between disciplinary investigations, disciplinary actions and the rights of public safety employees under the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act and the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act;  Fitness for duty examinations;  Labor Code section 4850 and its interplay with the disability discrimination and disability retirement laws; and  Handling of public safety employees’ personnel records.

This workbook is not designed as a comprehensive legal guide on the above topics. Rather, the workbook focuses on new issues as well as troublesome issues which arise repeatedly in the context of public safety employment and identifies options for addressing those issues.

Section 2 H IRING P RACTICES

A. P EACE O FFICER B ACKGROUND I NVESTIGATIONS

1. O VERVIEW Penal Code Section 13651 requires law enforcement agencies to review the job description of peace officers and make changes that emphasize community-based policing, familiarization between law enforcement and community residents, and collaborative problem solving, while de-emphasizing the paramilitary aspects of the job. 1 When hiring peace officers, the law mandates that a thorough background investigation be performed. Government Code section 1031 mandates that each class of public officers or employees declared by law to be peace officers shall meet all of the following minimum standards:  Be fingerprinted for purposes of search of local, state, and national fingerprint files to disclose any criminal record.  Be of good moral character, as determined by a thorough background investigation.

Principles for Public Safety Employment ©2022 (s) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 8