The OIG monitors critical incidents at California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation institutions and facilities or involving its staff, such as uses of deadly force, unexpected inmate deaths, hunger strikes, and large-scale riots. We evaluate how the department responds to and handles the incidents, and also identify potential staff misconduct and recommend policy implementation or improvement relative to the incidents.
Indicator 1 pertains to our assessment of the departments’ actions prior to the critical incident. In Indicator 2, we assessed the departments’ actions during the critical incident. In Indicator 3, we assessed the departments’ actions after the critical incident.
The rating for each indicator is based on the departments’ compliance with its own policies and adherence to sound practice combined with the OIGs’ opinion regarding the quality of the departments’ handling of the incident from the events leading up to the critical incident all the way to the department’s determinations about whether there was potential misconduct. The OIG understands that procedural errors do not necessarily render the departments’ performance as poor. However, we may assign a poor rating when major or multiple departures from procedure occur because such departures could cause breakdowns that lead to inefficiencies or delays, increase the potential for harm. To arrive at meaningful data for the OIG to monitor critical incidents and to track over time, we assigned a numerical point value to each of the individual indicator ratings and to the overall rating for each case. The point system is as follows:
Superior: 4 points
Satisfactory: 3 points
Poor: 2 points
We then added the collective value of the assigned points and divided the result by the total number of points possible to arrive at a weighted average score. To illustrate how this scoring method works, consider a hypothetical example consisting of 10 cases. The maximum point value—the denominator—would be 40 points (10 cases multiplied by 4 points). If the department scored one superior result, seven satisfactory results, and two poor results, its raw score—the numerator—would be 29 points. To arrive at the weighted average score, we would then divide 29 by 40, yielding a score of 72.5 percent. The formula for the hypothetical situation is given in the equation below.
(10 cases x 4 points)
Finally, we assigned a rating of superior to weighted averages that fell between 100 percent and 80 percent, satisfactory to weighted averages that fell between 79 percent and 70 percent, and poor to weighted averages that fell between 69 percent and 50 percent. Thus, using the example above, the summary-level rating would be satisfactory because the weighted average score of 72.5 percent was between 79 percent and 70 percent.
Data Source: Office of the Inspector General’s rating of CDCR critical incidents.
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