The police department is increasingly slapping officers on the wrist rather than handing out serious punishment when the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiates cases against them, according to the board’s mid-year status report released yesterday.

In June, the board first reported that while the department was closing cases faster, it was also giving verbal warnings more often than the more serious punishments recommended by the board. At the time, the police department said it was punishing more officers at lower levels because the board was turning over fewer serious cases.

Yesterday’s report, however, highlighted that for cases that have a high level of similarity over the years — discourtesy, offensive language, and abuse of authority — police have been issuing more verbal warnings, the lowest level of punishment.

In the second half of 2003, police gave verbal instructions to 23% of officers whom the board substantiated cases other than unnecessary use of force. For the first half of this year, the police gave verbal instructions to 75% of this type of substantiated cases.

A spokesman for the police department, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul Browne, yesterday denied in strong terms that the police commissioner made a decision to issue instructions instead of harsher discipline.

“For cases where force is not an issue, instruction is most often the appropriate remedy,” he said. “It’s something employed after a review of the facts, not simply as a decision to use more frequently, as CCRB asserted.”

Since the Civilian Complaint Review Board became an independent entity in 1993, it has had a troubled relationship with the police department. Observers said the latest report affirms the lack of comity between the organizations.

After a complaint is registered with the board, investigators interview witnesses, the complainant, and any police officers mentioned in the complaint. The board, which is made up of five mayoral designees, five City Council designees, and three police commissioner designees, then makes a decision on the case and recommends a level of punishment. Punishment usually ranges from verbal warnings to a period of suspension, known as “command discipline.”

The police commissioner is not bound by any determination of the board, and so on receiving the determination, he makes a decision as to whether the officer is guilty — often through an internal trial system — and what punishment the officer should receive.

The report also says that complaints against police have continued to rise. There were 3,877 complaints during the first half of this year, a 41% increase over the same period in 2003, when there were 2,753 complaints.

Police have said in the past that the rising number has to do with the ability to make complaints through 311, which was first enabled in March 2003.

Mr. Browne said yesterday that a large number of the complaints for the first part of 2006 were illegitimate because the complainant never made a statement.

The “phantom complaints,” he said, are “often employed by streetwise criminals to target active police officers.”

A spokesman for the board, Andrew Case, said the complaints Mr. Browne was referring to could have been truncated for a number of reasons, and they weren’t believed by the board to be filed in retaliation against enforcement.

The report also shows that the percentage of cases substantiated against police officers is down to 5% this year, compared with 9% during the same period in 2003.

The chairman of the City Council Public Safety Committee, Peter Vallone, said he would question the NYPD and CCRB on the numbers in an upcoming hearing.