It certainly helps our recruitment. The Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission requires agencies to meet 210 standards for accreditation. The standards deal with issues from how officers write traffic tickets to how they raid the home of a drug suspect. Law enforcement agencies can get either state or national accreditation. Roanoke, Roanoke County, Blacksburg and Virginia Tech police departments, for example, are nationally accredited.
National accreditation is more rigorous that state accreditation.
It also is more expensive, requiring and annual fee of several thousand dollars and a full-time staffer to keep up with accreditation issues.