Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske is leading the U.S. Customs and Border Protection toward a more transparent and accountable approach to enforcement and workforce integrity, while protecting the public and the men and women of CBP. At the direction of the Commissioner, CBP commissioned independent review of CBP complaints and discipline systems in September 2014 to improve the agency’s accountability and transparency in these areas.
As part of CBP’s Integrity and Accountability Strategy, the agency commissioned Pivotal Practices Consulting LLC to conduct a comprehensive, end-to-end review of CBP’s processes for handling allegations of employee misconduct. The review was designed to determine whether CBP’s process for handling allegations of misconduct fosters accountability, transparency and legitimacy, while reinforcing CBP’s commitment to ensuring that all employees are held to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct. The report, which was recently completed, contains 19 findings and 62 recommendations, all of which CBP thoroughly reviewed.
CBP concurs with the vast majority of recommendations. A workgroup is actively implementing and addressing the recommendations through improved policies, procedures, training, processes and reporting requirements. More broadly, CBP is working to:
- enhance the complete investigative and disciplinary process to be more efficient;
- make the avenues for reporting allegations of misconduct more accessible to all employees and the public;
- ensure the disciplinary process is administered in a consistent manner; and
- provide increased transparency and accountability on employee misconduct.