Police survey should be released to public

2 comments January 21st, 2009

Whatever is in the results of an internal survey of the Rockford Police Department can’t be as embarrassing as what our imaginations think might be in the report — or can it?

The reluctance, which borders on defiance, of city officials to release the survey results adds to the distrust between city management and rank-and-file officers and feeds the voting public’s cynicism about government.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office considers the survey “public records which should be made available for public inspection.” Judge Ron Pirrello has twice ordered the survey’s release. Yet city leaders persist in keeping the results to themselves and plan to appeal Pirrello’s latest order.

In the absence of information, the void is filled with all kinds of theories. The distrust those theories create is the greatest embarrassment.