AUDIT COMMITTEE SUMMARY
October 25, 2016
Audit of San Antonio Police Department’s Crisis Response Team Operations
Report Issued September 9, 2016
Background
The San Antonio Police Department’s Crisis Response Team (CRT) Unit was created in September 1996. The CRT serves an advocate for zero tolerance of family violence by providing prevention, consultation, and direct services to affected individuals, families, and groups. SAPD has CRT units located at each of its six substations throughout the City and are collectively made up of 20 police officers and 19 civilian caseworkers. The CRT units follow up with victims and perpetrators after an alleged domestic assault to provide crisis intervention and case management. Additionally, CRT members coordinate with other agencies and organizations such as the Battered Women’s Shelter and Family Justice Center to provide collaborative, multi-intervention services for victims of family violence.
The Crisis Response Units’ fiscal year 2016 expenses totaled approximately $4.2 million.
Audit Objective
Determine if the Crisis Response Team operations are in compliance with policies and procedures and are effective in meeting the needs of the community.
Audit Scope & Methodology
Our audit scope was calendar year 2015 and included the operations of the individual Crisis Response Team units located at each of the six SAPD substations. Interviews and walkthroughs were conducted with key CRT personnel. Additionally, we reviewed the SAPD’s General Manual Procedures and the San Antonio Fear Free Environment (SAFFE) CRT Standard Operating Procedures as criteria for our test work. We also relied on CRT case narratives and activity data for domestic violence cases recorded in the SAPD’s Record Management System (RMS).
Audit Conclusions
The Crisis Response Units are to be commended for the work that is being done. The team is comprised of dedicated and passionate personnel who have to handle difficult cases.
However, they are not consistently following established guidelines that could serve as internal controls to ensure operations are on track to meet program goals and objectives. Additionally, policies and procedures should be better defined to provide specific guidance for certain processes such as definitions of activities reported.
We identified control deficiencies in the following areas:
• Staff is not complying with policies and procedures in areas related to case documentation, training and monitoring of community outreach efforts.
• Types of activities reported by the six CRT units are inconsistent, making it difficult to measure performance and effectiveness of the CRT operations.
• A periodic review of user access to the RMS application is not performed to ensure only authorized and approved users have access.
San Antonio Police Department Management agreed with the audit findings and has developed positive action plans to address them.