An overdue first step to reform the FBI’s management-heavy bureaucratic paralysis. I hold the opinion that the changes needed are much more dramatic, but this will provide the heart of the FBI, the lowly Field Agent, with some hope that they won’t be steam-rollered when confronted by the political cronyism network within FBI management.
The FBI unit charged with agent discipline is inefficient and perceived as very unfair, an official report said Friday. The study was conducted by a commission headed by former Attorney General Griffin Bell and former FBI Associate Director Lee Colwell at the request of FBI Director Robert Mueller. The commission found a perception among FBI employees that the organization favors management over lower-level employees. "The commission has drawn the overall conclusion ... that (the Office of Professional Responsibility) ... has lost touch with its original mission and no longer effectively serves the director and the FBI as a whole," the report said. "OPR has become an unfortunate lightning rod ... as a perceived source of unfairness and favoritism that adversely impacts morale at a time in our history when this country depends more than ever on one of the world’s finest law enforcement agencies."
Staffing the OPR also is a problem, the commission said. "Of great concern is that OPR has become so stigmatized that it is extremely difficult to attract top personnel to sensitive OPR positions requiring the highest levels of experience, judgment and discretion," the report said. "Recruiting top-caliber people to the new OPR, or whatever the function may be called, will be the director’s greatest challenge if the improvements we suggest are to be successful. The study recommends a fundamental restructuring of the unit, among other things.
Though the commission was unable to prove that such a disparity exists, the "perception of a double standard of discipline favoring management over lower-level employees, which has received considerable publicity and attention, persists throughout the FBI." The commission also recommended the appointment of a working group "to eliminate performance issues from OPR’s jurisdiction and develop uniform punishment guidelines," as well as improvement in OPR’s procedures. The OPR was established in 1976 to address alleged employee misconduct and criminality. Faced with allegations that the unit itself was unfair to the bone, Mueller requested the independent study in May 2003. Mueller also sent internal e-mail messages asking those within the FBI who had complaints to contact the Bell-Colwell commission directly. Friday, Mueller thanked the commission and said he would assign an inspector-in-charge to see that the recommendations were implemented.
The FBI is in need of a major transformation. They are unequaled when the task is to apply organization, forensics, technology, etc. to determine who did what to whom and how -- after the fact. What we now need is for them to develop skills in crime / terror prevention... and to shitcan the grandstanding. |