Civilian complaints filed against the New York Police Department showed a double-digit jump in the first half of the year, the Civilian Complaint Review Board said in a report. According to the Police Department, that reflects the growing ease of filing complaints, not an increase in misconduct.

“The CCRB received more complaints during the period covered in this report than in any six-month period in its history as an agency independent of the NYPD,” the board’s chairman, Hector Gonzalez, announced in the written report. The board was moved from the aegis of the Police Department in 1993.

Civilian complaints on police behavior totaled 3,154 between January and June of this year, up by 14.5% from the 2,754 complaints during the same period in 2003, according to the board. The number of complaints in the first half of this year also exceeded the 2,805 complaints reported between July 1 and December 31 of 2003.

A police spokesman, Paul Browne, said the department “takes any complaints about misconduct seriously.” He also said, however, that the recent complaint numbers are lower than those reported in the 1970s and 1980s,when the board was under the auspices of the Police Department and it was harder to file a complaint, because there was no Internet and no 311 system.

“It’s disingenuous for them to describe this as some sort of historical increase when there were far more complaints 30 years ago and they were recorded diligently but without the assistance of the Internet,” Mr. Browne said.

He said the board has stepped up its outreach efforts in educating the public on filing complaints. “They’ve advertised it,” Mr. Browne said. “They’re making it easier to do and they’re advertising how to do it.”

Mr. Gonzalez, a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw and a former assistant U.S. attorney, said the rise in complaints that began in mid-2002 “has shown no signs of slowing.”

The board spokesman, Ray Patterson, said the process of filing a complaint was streamlined by the implementation of the city’s 311 telephone system. Since March 2003, members of the public have been able to call the board directly to report a complaint. They also can submit a complaint by sending an e-mail, writing to the mayor’s office, or visiting the board’s office at 40 Rector St.

“Three digits, and you can file a complaint,” Mr. Patterson said. In the first half of 2004, Mr. Browne said, the number of 311 calls forwarded directly to the board was 2,961, compared to 474 calls in the first half of 2003.

Misconduct complaints against arresting officers range from cursing to the use of unnecessary physical force. The board organized the complaints for the first half of 2004 into the following categories: force, 29.6%; abuse of authority, 50.0%; discourtesy, 17.4%, and offensive language, 3.0%. Force complaints include such categories as “gun as club,” “handcuffs too tight,” and “choke hold,” while abuse of authority include such categories as “strip search” and “threat of arrest.”

There are more allegations than complaints, because a single complaint can contain multiple allegations. As an example, a police officer might be accused of using foul language while conducting an improper arrest, and that would be a single complaint containing two allegations.

During January to June, 53% of all cases were truncated, because complainants dropped their case, provided insufficient contact information to the board, or became uncooperative. Of the remaining cases, 16.4% were substantiated, according to the board.

“We substantiate a small number of the allegations that come in,” Mr. Patterson said. “It’s very difficult to prove the allegations. In many cases it’s one on one – it’s a police officer against a civilian. It’s not an easy thing to do. But it’s important to do this.”

Substantiated cases, Mr. Patterson said, are forwarded to the Police Department, and officers are disciplined in 75% of those cases.

But Mr. Browne found fault with how the board arrives at its percentage for substantiated cases without including truncated cases in its rate.

“They’re ignoring 1,577 complaints that were truncated by the board, and that’s a way of increasing the substantiated rate,” Mr. Browne said. He argues the rate of truncation should be less than 8%, not 16.4%, for the first six months of this year.

As for demographics, the board described the majority of complainants alleging police misconduct as young, black, and male. The report focuses on ethnicity in detail, specifying whether alleged police profanity is directed toward a complainant’s race, and incorporating the race of the officer along with the race of the complainant.

Mr. Patterson said the board does not serve as a public advocate but rather as a neutral quasi-judiciary.