CHARLESTON, S.C. - An investigation of South Carolina's system for tracking police officers with histories of misconduct or criminal behavior showed that many officers remained on forces despite major incidents of misconduct and sometimes even criminal behavior.

The (Charleston) Post and Courier reported Saturday that the state agency responsible for enforcing professional standards among the state's 14,000 officers lacks basic resources such as field investigators and a disciplinary board.

The officers, some with criminal records that have been wiped clean through court programs, frequently filter down to smaller police agencies that sometimes overlook past problems because they cannot afford to pay competitive salaries.

Officers' backgrounds are not adequately investigated because of sloppy record-keeping, fear of lawsuits and the code of silence within law enforcement, the newspaper reported.

Many states have adopted laws aimed at weeding troubled cops out of the profession. In South Carolina, the state's nearly 300 police agencies were not barred from hiring problem officers. All the state did was collect reports on misconduct, firings and resignations from the departments.

In 2002, the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy began taking an active role in departments' hiring practices and has flagged some 167 officers for possible misconduct and character problems. It barred 43 of them from returning to law enforcement.

Since 1997, nearly 800 officers have been fired for misconduct. Another 2,000 received "undesirable separations" in which they were fired or forced to resign, the newspaper reported.

North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said law enforcement has to police itself.

"If an officer does something wrong, whether it's in California or South Carolina, it has a direct reflection on every officer in the United States," he said. "We have to guard the profession."

The newspaper highlighted recent incidents that show what can happen when officers slip through the cracks.

- In June 2004, Port of Charleston police officer Patrick O'Neal leveled his pistol at the stunned crowd of dockworkers, barking orders as he straddled a longshoreman who lay handcuffed and bleeding at his feet.

Dockworker Richard Brown had been slammed to the ground after walking away from the officer during an argument, witnesses said. "He was crazy," Brown said. "I've never seen nobody like that."

State Ports Authority officials didn't know when they hired O'Neal that he had been investigated twice by his previous employer - the North Charleston Police Department - for his role in off-duty fights. He had been arrested, reprimanded and forced out the door. But there was nothing on his record.

- On October 31, 2002, Santee Police Officer Brian Brown crashed his cruiser near Bowman, killing a man and critically injuring the man's wife. The state attorney general's office has charged Brown with reckless homicide.

But according to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in Columbia, which regulates police hiring in the state, Brown is an officer in good standing with the Bonneau Police Department.

That comes despite the fact that his superiors in his first job as a police officer in Summerville told the academy they wouldn't hire Brown back because he had violated department policy. The violation was not explained, the paper said.

- Roudro Gourdine was hired as a Berkeley County sheriff's deputy last year despite two allegations that he used excessive force on suspects in his custody at other departments.

The former Charleston police officer killed a man with his bare hands inside the department's downtown booking area in 1987. After he was acquitted of manslaughter charges, he went to work for police in Andrews.

There, a suspect who claimed Gourdine broke his collarbone in a jail cell confrontation four years ago, sued the town and Gourdine for negligence and violation of civil rights. Gourdine was not charged in the incident, but the town settled the lawsuit for $15,000.