Sheriff Paul Penzone couldn't root out racial bias in his ranks. Can anyone?

Sheriff Paul Penzone surprised many earlier this month by deciding to step down a year before his second term ends.

He telegraphed at the press announcement that the “cloud” that hangs over the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office — court orders and federal monitors that have stretched nearly a decade — isn’t one to dissipate anytime soon.

Not one he can get out from under.

He’s not wrong.

Penzone has gone as far as he’s able to effect change. Or as far as he’s willing.

2 giant issues still dog MCSO

There's broad agreement, shared at a community meeting last week — by his office, the ACLU, the court-monitoring team and other parties — that the department is still dogged by two significant matters:

• Data of traffic stops continue to find that Latino drivers are stopped longer (by roughly a minute), and cited and searched more frequently.

• Internal investigations of misconduct allegations are taking way too long (an average of more than 600 days), weakening public trust, especially among ethnic minority groups that have had troubled interactions with law enforcement.

This, seven years into Penzone’s tenure.

You can argue the problems are on him — the man whom voters installed in 2016 to clean house.

On internal investigations, that certainly rings true.

Long investigations are Penzone's fault

At one point early into Penzone's first term, investigations took a little more than 200 days to finish, far from the 85 days U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow mandated but still plausible to chip away at.

The average ballooned above 600 days, according to an analysis that a Snow-appointed law-enforcement auditing expert released last summer. This because of a rise in caseload and stagnant staffing — but also in part because the Penzone administration emphasized quality over timeliness.

The sheriff has had trouble filling positions, a reality all law enforcement agencies struggle with to varying degrees.

Beating Sheriff Joe was easy: Undoing his legacy was not

But he also failed to use his power to redirect staff to the overwhelmed Professional Standards Bureau or to ask county supervisors, the courts and others for help.

Instead, he forced Judge Snow’s hand. The present set of solutions include diverting some of the cases to contractors the court must approve and to hire more than half a dozen investigators.

Racial bias is a tougher nut to crack

The racial disparities in traffic stop data are a different beast, and here one can be sympathetic to Penzone’s frustrations.

The data don’t provide insights about why Latinos are stopped for longer or why they’re cited or searched more often. Court-ordered requirements have led to a bevy of policy changes, many involving curriculum, training and oversight.

MCSO’s presentation at the Oct. 19 community meeting in Guadalupe indicates deputies and detention officers have each undergone hundreds of hours of mandatory training — supervisors even more.

Traffic stops are required to be videotaped for review. And monthly assessments of traffic stops since April 2021 have flagged 135 deputies for potential bias. Seventeen of those deputies were referred to their supervisors for “intervention,” or a talk.

None of the cases rose to the level requiring investigations by the Professional Standards Bureau.

Sheriff actively tried to root it out

Correspondingly, of the more than 60% of the roughly 550 complaints by Latinos that MCSO’s internal affairs has investigated since July 2016, 10 were found to involve bias.

The Sheriff’s Office did not have details at the community hearing of what the discipline involved but noted it “can and often is termination.”

In other words, there have been active, court-monitored efforts to root out both so-called explicit, or conscious, bias and implicit bias.

Who’s to say what more it’d take, or how much longer, for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to rid the disparities found in the traffic stops?

ICE's presence complicates matters

Complicating the racial bias question is the longstanding practice by the Sheriff’s Office to allow federal immigration agents a presence in its jails.

Penzone quieted some of the criticism by halting the policy of “courtesy holds” of up to 48 hours for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of inmates who have posted bail and otherwise were eligible for release.

But he chose to continue allowing ICE to work at the front end of the system — screening inmates being booked into jail and then detaining them as they’re being released.

Estimated thousands who hadn’t been convicted of a crime have been deported as a result.

Penzone drew a distinction between the two processes, saying the former ran the risks of a lawsuit (he was advised by then-County Attorney Bill Montgomery) while the latter is legal and a matter of public safety.

What the next county sheriff faces

Immigration advocates, however, see it as part and parcel to the systematic racism and “racial profiling” being continued under Penzone.

Some of the advocates sit on the powerful court-created Community Advisory Board charged with reviewing MCSO policies and ensuring dialogue with the Latino community.

And they hold the sheriff with great disdain, characterizing him as arrogant and defiant, unwilling to fully engage with the community, including the advisory board. (Penzone declined to be interviewed.)

For them, Penzone is persona non grata, even if he were to seek and win a third term.

The next Maricopa County sheriff must navigate all of this before there’s peace and normalcy.

Reach Abe Kwok at akwok@azcentral.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @abekwok.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Paul Penzone couldn't root out racial bias as sheriff. Who can?