TIGHTENING NARCOTICS UNIT

POLICING the police is a difficult job. As one book on police ethics says,
''If you look at a cop on the street, there's nobody immediately looking
over the cop's shoulder.''

That's why careful internal management is crucial. And, at times, why
external review is, too.

When two Jefferson County Metro Narcotics detectives were indicted last
March, Police Chief William Carcara immediately knew it was one of those
times. He called for an external review.

He didn't seem to believe a review would find any systemic problem. In a
letter to The Courier-Journal, he pointed out that Metro Narcotics policies
and procedures mirrored the federal guidelines.

''The actions are by two, not the other 498 men and women of this
extraordinary department,'' he wrote. ''Unfortunately, no system exists
that can never be circumvented by those having criminal intent.''

Now six months later, the draft of the external audit has been delivered.
It concludes that, in some ways, the Chief was right: ''It was not
egregious omission that permitted the criminal abuse of the system,'' the
report says. The problem was ''the exploitation of a combination of small
but critical loopholes, together with the failure by supervisors and
commanders to consistently administer existing policies.'' Some practical
operational and philosophical changes were recommended.

Some of those recommendations fall under the category of just paying
attention to even small breaches in procedure. Colleagues and supervisors
of the two indicted officers should have questioned things they saw and
complaints they heard, but they didn't. Consequently, Metro Narcotics and
the police department have been compromised, and dozens of cases have been
destroyed, eight convictions have been set aside and 49 charges have been
dismissed.

The biggest lesson in this episode, however, may be this: Police
departments shouldn't run from external review.

Instead of calling for this audit, Chief Carcara could have simply
dismissed the indicted officers as two bad apples. Certainly, that approach
has been taken before.

Now he has a 49-page report showing how to close loopholes and change
procedures so Metro Narcotics will function better than before.