Civilian Complaint Review Board - Today

Today

The CCRB exits today as a fully independent civil department, staffed with 100 investigators and about a dozen miscellaneous employees. Additionally, three officers from the NYPD's Monitoring and Analysis Section of the Department Advocate's Office work with the CCRB at their office at 40 Rector Street. Their role is to provide the Investigators with access to certain restricted NYPD documentation quickly and efficiently without having to wait the lengthy processing period document requests normally take (sometimes outlasting the course of an investigation).

The agency is headed by the 13 board members, who defer day-to-day operational command to an Executive Director (currently Ms. Joan Thompson, as of September 18, 2007, formally Ms. Florence Finkle, Esq.), who is then followed by the First Deputy Executive Director, which was formerly known as the Assistant Deputy Executive Director before that position was transformed into its new form (this later position remains unfilled). The Agency then separates into several divisions, the largest being the Investigative division led by a Deputy Executive Director of Investigations, followed by four Assistant Deputy Executive Directors of Investigations. However, due to budget cuts in 2009, the Deputy Executive Director of Investigations and three of the Assistant Deputy Executive Directors of Investigations were eliminated, leaving the Investigations division under direction of the First Deputy Executive Director and one Assistant Deputy Executive Director of Investigations. The division is then broken down into 8 Investigative Teams, led by an Investigative Manager, along with a Supervising Investigator and an Assistant Supervising Investigator. Initially, there had been 7 Investigative Team Managers, with two teams sharing one manager, but in early 2010, budget cuts have forced the agency to restructure under 6 Investigative Managers. Promotions to Assistant Supervising Investigator and Supervising Investigator are not necessarily granted to Investigators based on tenure or rate or result of investigations. The remaining Investigators fall into Level I and Level II, which simply denotes tenure, experience and pay grade.

The agency is also broken down into an Administrative Division, which includes Human Resources, Information Management Unit and the Case Management Unit (which stores all records of past cases), amongst others, which is led by the Deputy Executive Director of Administration. There are then four other directorships, the Research and Strategic Initiatives Director, Mediation Unit Director, Director of Intergovernmental and Legal Affairs, and the Press Secretary. However, 2009 budget cuts have also caused the Press Secretary and Outreach Unit to be eliminated. There is also an attorney, Mr. Grahram Daw, Esq., who serves as the Agency's legal counsel. These units compliment and serve the Investigations Unit, which acts as the main focal point of the Agency.