CALEA sets inspiring standards for local officers
In late March, I appeared before a five-person panel of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) in Mobile, Alabama to answer questions and receive feedback in relation to a comprehensive on-site audit of LPS involving more than 480 of the highest standards in policing.
This was the final stage in the threeyear accreditation process and I am very proud of all of our members for their ongoing work and all their efforts because I wouldn’t have been standing there nor would we have received our seventh accreditation certificate without them.
If you aren’t familiar with CALEA it is a law enforcement credentialing authority that was created in 1979 and exists to improve the delivery of public safety services by maintaining a best-in-class body of standards, establishing and administering an accreditation process and recognizing professional excellence.
CALEA has established a comprehensive set of 484 standards that are the highest in policing. The standards cover everything from law enforcement operations and relationships with other agencies to administration and support services. Only five percent of law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are accredited and there are only eight agencies in Canada – including LPS.
Prior to joining LPS, my previous experience with CALEA was dated. In the early 2000s, I worked with a police service in Ontario that was one of several in the GTA-Golden Horseshoe and Highway 401 corridor that were striving for CALEA accreditation. What I knew from back then is the process is intense and in the end not everybody gets accredited. It was a lot of work that forced the participants to really selfassess and improve. Many elected to go with the provincial standards which set the bar at “adequate and effective policing.”
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines adequate as “enough for some need or requirement; good enough; of a quality that is good or acceptable; of a quality that is acceptable but not better than acceptable.” My observation is the Alberta policing standards are very similar to the Ontario standards in that they set a basic requirement for policing. In the public safety business, adequate or basic should never be what we aim for.
When one speaks of CALEA there is a lot of talk about policy which is synonymous with administration, but in reality it has a huge impact on our dayto-day frontline operations. Operationally speaking, where it really resonated with me was in our last officer-involved shooting. That incident clearly demonstrated how our policies impact training and training impacts performance on the street and organizational response. The provincial investigators with the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team — who investigate all officerinvolved shootings in the province — were very candid that our policies, procedures, training and records separated us from the pack.
When I was in Mobile, the CALEA panel also praised the Service for its robust use of force policy and during the on-site audit that was conducted last December, the assessors noted our exhibit processing and storage procedures were one of the best they had ever seen in North America and they will be using LPS as a best practice referral for other agencies.
Exhibits, AKA seized or found property, is one of the areas that cause police services their biggest challenges. Recently the Windsor Star reported that $25,000 worth of cocaine was found to be missing from the Windsor Police evidence vault. The drugs were evidence in a court case and there is no documentation to account for what happened to them. It’s believed they were erroneously destroyed as part of a regular evidence purge of exhibits no longer required for court, but without documentation detailing the chain of custody, the department has been accused of other more nefarious actions.
This is just one of many examples of the extreme importance of proper evidence handling and storage procedures, so for us to be recognized as a best practice in North America is an incredible achievement.
Our voluntary participation in the CALEA program demonstrates our commitment to adopt and maintain industry best practices to better serve the community. CALEA standards are constantly evolving and as a result our policy, training and how we do business on the street evolves with them. Achieving compliance with CALEA standards is well above and beyond the provincial standards agencies in Alberta are mandated to meet and it’s important for the public to understand we choose CALEA because it gives us the tools to continually review operations, improve where we can and lead by example. It sets the bar higher and helps the organization be better for our people and the citizens we serve.