PEABODY — Things couldn’t have gone better for the Peabody Police Department this week, which completed the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission re-accreditation assessment this week.
While the department will not learn the results of the assessment until the next quarterly meeting of the commission (TBD), Chief Thomas Griffin said he has no reason not to think that the department will have a successful outcome.
“They indicated that they will recommend the department to be re-accredited as they were extremely pleased with our operations,” Griffin said. “They told us they will make a very positive recommendation to the accreditation commission, so we certainly were pleased with that.”
The process, which took place Dec. 15-16, is held every three years usually over a three-day period, but this year, with the forecast of Thursday’s nor’easter, the process was condensed into two days.A team of four assessors conducted the review.
“They go through all of our policies and make sure they are up to snuff,” said Griffin. “They found a couple of minor things that required additional language, so it was more of an update. I don’t anticipate any issues at all as, had there been some, they would have been brought to our attention during the review.”
Griffin said one of the primary benefits of being accredited is it strengthens the department’s accountability, limiting liability and improving its relationship with the community through implementation of proven law enforcement management practices.
“Maintaining accreditation from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission is a priority for (our) agency.”
Griffin said the process involves a complete review of all of the department’s policies and procedures to ensure that the department is compliant with current commission-mandated standards as well as compliance with any new amendments or standards adopted by the commission.
“A lot of hard work goes into the accreditation process and the fact that the Peabody Police Department has been accredited since 2003 is a significant accomplishment and something that the Peabody Police Department and the community can be very proud of,” said Griffin, adding that Peabody is one of only 95 police departments across the commonwealth to have achieved accreditation distinction.
Griffin said now, more than ever before, at a time when police are under intense criticism for their actions with respect to persons of color, being accredited should help validate the professionalism and practices of the department.
“The assessors actually come in and make a complete review of our policies and practices, so this is not a rubber stamp,” he said. “The review is against the best practices in the industry, so this isn’t about us saying we are doing right by those standards; we actually have people coming in to make an independent assessment that we are, which should give the public confidence that the police department is striving to do the right things and not be considered a rogue police department. A lot of the things that we are already practicing, incidentally, are included in many of these police reform packages.”
The Massachusetts Police Accreditation Program is available to all police agencies across the commonwealth. Like other accreditation programs, the process consists of two major components: first, the establishment of a body of professional standards for police agencies to meet. The second component is a voluntary assessment process by which agencies can be publicly recognized for meeting those standards considered best practices for the profession.
Accreditation is the higher of two programs offered by the commission. It consists of 382 standards, 257 of which are mandatory and another 125 which are optional. Mandatory standards that do not apply to the agency are waived.
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
