Alpharetta Police Wins Advanced Gold Standard Accreditation Award

ALPHARETTA, GA -- A representative from the national organization tasked with awarding accreditation to law enforcement agencies across the country formally recognized the Alpharetta Police Department for its achievement.

The department was presented with the Commission on Accreditation For Law Enforcement Accreditation's Advanced Gold Standard Accreditation with Excellence Award during the Sept. 25 Alpharetta City Council meeting.

The Gold Standard of accreditation is the highest possible ranking a department can receive. Out of the hundreds of agencies participating in the CALEA accreditation process, "very few achieve this great accomplishment," the police department said.

The police department in August was re-accredited by CALEA, which recognizes law enforcement agencies that consistently work to maintain professional excellence by adhering to a rigorous set of performance standards (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.).

Through an extremely collaborative effort, CALEA provides public safety agencies an opportunity to voluntarily demonstrate that they meet these standards and processes for decision-making. The level of compliance involving hundreds of standards is verified by a team of independent out-of-state CALEA-trained assessors.

The CALEA Accreditation with Excellence Award provides agencies an opportunity to be further recognized for the effective use of accreditation as a model for the delivery of enhanced public safety services and management professionalism.

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To be eligible to receive the Accreditation with Excellence Award, departments:

• Must have a minimum of two previous consecutive CALEA Accreditation awards.
• Must not have conditions or noncompliance issues resulting from the current or last assessment.
• Must conduct current assessment under the CALEA® Gold Standard Assessment model.
• Must be in compliance with 90 percent of all applicable other-than-mandatory standards at the time of the current assessment report.
• Must have limited file maintenance and not more than two applied discretion issues on its current assessment report.
• Must not be operating under any active federal consent decree or memorandum of understanding, or state-level complementary action.
• Must not currently be affected by issues that detract from the overall tenets or goals of CALEA Accreditation.
• Must receive a unanimous recommendation of support from the assigned CALEA Review Committee.

This award is determined by the Commission, which reviews the qualifying agencies’ assessment report and renders a decision concerning the excellence award. The CALEA Accreditation with Excellence Award attaches to the agency's accreditation award for a period of four years.

Alpharetta police state the benefits of having the accreditation attached to its operations are greater accountability within the agency, reduced and liability exposure, stronger defense against civil lawsuits, support from government officials and increased community advocacy.

Image via Alpharetta Department of Public Safety