Danvers Police extend national accreditation streak

The Danvers Police Department recently extended its record of achieving national accreditation, a streak that dates back to 1986.

Every three years, the town invites out-of-state assessors from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement to come to Danvers to confirm that town police are making use of up-to-date policies and practices, according to Police Chief Neil Ouellette.

To maintain national accreditation, a police department of Danvers’s size must comply with more than 300 mandatory policy standards and at least 80 optional ones.

“For every standard, you have to have proof that you do what the standard requires, and what your policy says,” Ouellette said.

As an example, he noted that when officers use force against suspects, the officer must file a report that goes up the entire chain of command. Ouellette said that he and other police officials make sure the report complies with the standards of the national Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, known as CALEA.

“By doing that, we have a very small number of uses of force in the course of a year, usually just six to eight, which is a very low number for a force of our size,” Ouellette said.

He said another element that helps the department consistently score high with CALEA is the department’s lack of part-time officers, who are unlikely to have the same level of training of full-time officers.

Prior to October 1996, when Massachusetts created its own police accreditation commission, the only option for becoming accredited was to do it at the national level. Fall River and Newton are the only other Massachusetts municipalities to obtain national accreditation, according to Danvers police.

Once state accreditation was in place, the number of cities and towns to meet standards began to rise, according to Burlington Town Administrator John Petrin, the MMA representative on the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission. Petrin said 55 police departments have achieved accreditation at the state level. An additional 17 police departments have also met the more demanding standards of certification.

By creating a state system, Petrin said, Massachusetts was able to address particular issues, such as the reliance of smaller communities on part-time officers. He emphasized that the state accreditation commission does not rate the qualities of a police department.

“What we do is make sure that you have the procedures and the guidelines that are needed in order to address performance issues,” Petrin said.