Lakeland Police Withdraw from CALEA Accreditation Process
Accreditation is a self-assessment process that ensures a police agency is operating according to established professional standards. Both the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement (CALEA) and the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA) are voluntary processes. The recent decision of the CFA Commission not to grant reaccreditation was a great disappointment to the LPD, but it was also a lesson. After reviewing the standards for CALEA for the 2011 reaccreditation, it was determined it would be in the best interest of the Lakeland Police Department and the City of Lakeland to voluntarily withdraw from the CALEA assessment process.
In order to embrace the spirit of accreditation completely, and make sure all pistons are smoothly firing in our engines, we feel we need to completely assess our current practices and service so that we can deliver the best possible policing agency to the City of Lakeland, as well as the officers that work so hard in our community to make Lakeland a better place to live.
Since the beginning of LPD’s accreditation process, the standards for accreditation have evolved over time. Based on our recent review by the CFA Commission, we have decided that withdrawal from the CALEA accreditation process will provide the opportunity to assess all of our existing policies and incorporate evolving assessment standards into these policies. This will allow us the ability to realign our practices with policy and current changes. In other words, to ensure that all policies and practices are up to date. The reality is there are mutual compliance requirements in both accrediting bodies. Often when one assessment is not in compliance, the other will not be as well.
The new Chief of Police coming to the Lakeland Police Department will also benefit from the opportunity to have his/her own review and input on existing policies and will be able to make changes accordingly.
Both CALEA and CFA run on a three year cycle. In the past, these cycles were overlapping, yet many of the requirements were the same. This overlapping caused LPD to duplicate some of the evaluation processes because the same evaluations were required, but at different times due to the overlapping cycles. By withdrawing from the CALEA assessment process, LPD will be given the opportunity to align both accreditation processes (CALEA and CFA) so that they are synchronized and run on the same cycle. This realignment process will not cause any additional cost, and it will give the LPD more time to conduct a thorough, in-depth assessment.
CALEA currently has 464 standards required and CFA currently has 84. The LPD’s policies currently exceed the minimum standards required under either program. Many of these standards contain aggregated reporting periods within the requirements of different time frames, such as monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually. These changes are becoming more challenging to maintain at these varying levels, and LPD will ultimately be evaluated to determine if compliance and documentation exists to show that these standards have been met.
Once the decision is made to withdraw from the CALEA reaccreditation process, a new contract will be signed by LPD to begin preparation for the next onsite inspection. This contract has a minimum two year requirement for the self-assessment process. The Lakeland Police Department will enter into contracts with CFA and CALEA at the same time. We anticipate becoming accredited with CFA and CALEA in the end of 2012 or early 2013. Since both CFA and CALEA have some mutual requirements, it became obvious that some of the same areas that were not in compliance with CFA also applied to CALEA.
A review team of cross-section department employees is working toward evaluating current practices and establishing that all policies and procedures are brought up to date. Although the contract requires a two year interim before accreditation can be obtained, the LPD has already began addressing issues and is expected to be in full compliance well before the two year period ends.
Media inquiries should be directed to Sergeant Terri Smith, 863.834.6917.
- posted by Sergeant Terri Smith
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