This weekend is one of those weekends that comes around every three years here at work. This is the weekend that assessors from the Commission on Accredidation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) visits the Dublin Police Department to perform their on-site assessment of our department. Dublin has been an accreditted agency since before I started working here nearly 14 years ago. Basically CALEA has a set of standards that they use to accredit agencies. Agencies go through of voluntary process if they wish to be accreditted through CALEA. On the face of it, it looks good. Our department complies with a set of standards and we are recognized for it. But the standards aren't arbitrary. The standards are set by CALEA in order to help make sure that any agency they recognize are serving their communities in a professional manner, ensuring that these agencies have some of the best trainings and guidelines to make sure they're doing the job that the public expects of them. As a matter of fact, part of the accredidation process is also holding a community forum. A time when any member of the community can come in and speak to the assessors and the department about how they think the department is doing.
The first couple of times that I worked during the assessment process I was a little nervous. The assessors will walk around the building and talk to the employees. While they're doing this they ask questions...seemingly because their curious about our department and how we do things, but in reality they're checking to see if we're doing things the way we're supposed to be in order to be compliant with the standards. After the first couple of on-site visits however, I realized that it's really not that difficult. We're trained pretty well here and the "standards" that are in place are just part of the way we do business here.
The last two assessments have gone very well here. Dublin has been a "Flagship" agency. Now I can't tell you exactly what that means, other than to say that we did very well in the assessment process. Preparing for and keeping up with the assessment process is not an easy task. So I will give credit to Lt. Dejarnette, Lt. Farmer and Sgt. Paez...those are the people who have been responsible for maintaining all the files, because complying with the standards not only involves knowing the standards, but we have to be able to produce records to prove that we actually comply with those standards during our normal course of business...THAT is the time consuming part of the process and involves a lot of work on their part.
So why does the Dublin Police Dept. find it necessary to go through this process? Their are a few. Part is cost...insurance companies tend to charge less for liability insurance to departments who have this accredidation. Part is to show that we are a professional department. Meeting these standards means that we don't practice law enforcement "by the seat of our pants." But in the end it involves striving for excellence.
So why have I spent all this time blogging about the Dublin Police Dept. and the current accreditation process? Well, it's about the excellence. During my first few years with the agency we were still a little bit new to the whole accreditation thing. But as we've continued to go through the process every few years, it seems to get easier and easier. Going from a place that is less than excellent and trying to achieve excellence takes a lot of work. But once you get there the road gets a little easier. That's not to say that you don't have work to stay excellent. That's also not to say that it's not easier to just relax and go back to being "good enough". So is being "good enough" good enough? Or should we be striving for excellence? There are a few different schools of thought on that one. Just a little food for thought I guess.
The first couple of times that I worked during the assessment process I was a little nervous. The assessors will walk around the building and talk to the employees. While they're doing this they ask questions...seemingly because their curious about our department and how we do things, but in reality they're checking to see if we're doing things the way we're supposed to be in order to be compliant with the standards. After the first couple of on-site visits however, I realized that it's really not that difficult. We're trained pretty well here and the "standards" that are in place are just part of the way we do business here.
The last two assessments have gone very well here. Dublin has been a "Flagship" agency. Now I can't tell you exactly what that means, other than to say that we did very well in the assessment process. Preparing for and keeping up with the assessment process is not an easy task. So I will give credit to Lt. Dejarnette, Lt. Farmer and Sgt. Paez...those are the people who have been responsible for maintaining all the files, because complying with the standards not only involves knowing the standards, but we have to be able to produce records to prove that we actually comply with those standards during our normal course of business...THAT is the time consuming part of the process and involves a lot of work on their part.
So why does the Dublin Police Dept. find it necessary to go through this process? Their are a few. Part is cost...insurance companies tend to charge less for liability insurance to departments who have this accredidation. Part is to show that we are a professional department. Meeting these standards means that we don't practice law enforcement "by the seat of our pants." But in the end it involves striving for excellence.
So why have I spent all this time blogging about the Dublin Police Dept. and the current accreditation process? Well, it's about the excellence. During my first few years with the agency we were still a little bit new to the whole accreditation thing. But as we've continued to go through the process every few years, it seems to get easier and easier. Going from a place that is less than excellent and trying to achieve excellence takes a lot of work. But once you get there the road gets a little easier. That's not to say that you don't have work to stay excellent. That's also not to say that it's not easier to just relax and go back to being "good enough". So is being "good enough" good enough? Or should we be striving for excellence? There are a few different schools of thought on that one. Just a little food for thought I guess.
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