The Mississippi State University Police Department is working hard to prepare for its reaccreditation process by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.According to its Web site, www.calea.org, the mission of CALEA is to improve the delivery of public safety services.
MSU Police Chief Georgia Lindley said the department, which was initially accredited three years ago, is one of the few agencies in the state to boast the prestigious title.
“This is a procedure where departments voluntarily submit to meeting standards that improve the quality of our law enforcement services to the people that we serve,” Lindley said. “We’re one of only four in the state of Mississippi that has this national accreditation, and we’re the only university nationally accredited in the state.”
In order to be accredited, the police department must meet and comply with 487 CALEA standards and submit voluntarily to an assessment of the agency.
“It gives us a set of standards to go by all the time so that all our service is always consistent and consistently high,” she said.
Lindley said assessors arrived Sunday and will be evaluating the MSUPD until Wednesday.
“They will go through our files and ensure that we are doing what we say we’re going to do and have continued with the process that we set up years ago,” she said. “They will tour our facility, look at all our equipment, go through the standards one at a time and check what we have in our files.”
One of the department’s own, Sgt. Virginia Rich, will soon take part in the process of becoming a certified CALEA assessor.
“Assessors are the eyes and ears for the commission,” Rich said. “They must be knowledgeable of standards set by CALEA and make sure that agencies are in compliance with standards, then report back to the commission indicating findings and recommendations.”
Having an assessor on board in the department is not only valuable to the MSU Police Department, but to departments all over the state, Rich said.
“It’s a benefit to the state of Mississippi because the state recently formed a state accreditation, and a lot of departments are now taking the first step to receiving that recognition,” she said.
Lindley said to prepare for the assessment the MSUPD must begin documenting all activity that meet CALEA standards from the beginning of the three-year period until the end. The process is an investment both monetarily and time-wise.
“There is a fee involved every year, conferences you are required to attend to update your skills and what’s going on in your department and many procedures you have to put in place,” she said.
The next step for MSUPD will be to attend a conference in March to answer any remaining questions and, if passed, will travel to Florida in July to receive accreditation, Lindley said.
Raven Fritz, a junior public relations and broadcasting major, finds the department’s accreditation valuable to students on campus.
“It makes the department more professional looking and it proves to me that they take the job of monitoring the safety on campus seriously.”
She said the department is keeping with the general sense of Bulldog pride on campus.
“It sets a good precedent because they chose to do it voluntarily and that reflects well on the university,” Fritz said.