“My take on the whole problem — all the cops that have any experience and have been around a while are gone. We’ve got a department made up of youngsters,” Vaccaro said.

A lack of supervision often is the cause of misconduct, said Professor David Carter, a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University. He said he had worked with two police agencies that had similar runs of bad news during U.S. Department of Justice projects.

“It’s unfortunately not that uncommon,” Carter said. The reasons vary, but often come down to a lack of peer support and supervision, he said.

“First-line supervisors just simply weren’t monitoring their personnel, taking corrective action when necessary,” he said.

He said that typically, officers are not following police policies, and “the misconduct was just kind of a manifestation of that.”

The effect on the community also varies, he said, depending on whether the community already has a positive or negative impression of the department.