Supervisors are busy reviewing and processing paperwork, scheduling personnel, and developing and implementing crime-fighting strategies, while the Chief's desk is covered with City Council requests, media inquiries, citizen complaints, and crime and workload statistics. To be effective, to do what they must do legally, and to perform well against ever-increasing odds, these professionals not only need to be governed by the most contemporary policing policies, but also must be able to understand them. The accreditation process provides a forum for this knowledge and practice. By having an accredited police department, a City Manager can be reasonably confident that the agency is doing things right. No, not in my opinion.
Accreditation works equally well in departments of all sizes.
This is because the standards and the process are tailored to the size of an agency and the functions it performs. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies has accredited more than 300 departments and most of them are coming back through the process by way of reaccreditation. There are hundreds more in the pipeline. Accreditation is having a profound impact on modern policing and will continue to do so. In law enforcement circles, these are the lead police departments in the country.