December 7, 2012

The MU Police Department was recently awarded renewed accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. On top of its renewal status, the department was also awarded “Accreditation with Excellence.”

This is the fifth time the department was awarded the accreditation by CALEA, but it was the first time it received the Accreditation with Excellence.

“This recognition acknowledges the fact that our police officers are among the best in the nation at their jobs,” Chancellor Brady Deaton said.

CALEA aims to improve the delivery of public safety standards developed by public safety practitioners.

MUPD spokesman Brian Weimer said CALEA will keep watch over the department.

“We must remain in compliance with all applicable standards between now and July 2015,” Weimer said. “They send a team of assessors to review the department’s procedures.”

The department will go to all means to maintain these standards.

“(MUPD will) continue to follow procedures to make sure that we not only keep our policies in place, but that we are practicing them and matching them with our standards,” Weimer said. “We will continuously train our employees.”

Those standards are not easy to maintain, according to Weimer.

“(CALEA hosts) many different areas, with over 480 standards, plus two to 10 categories in each standard,” Weimer said. “Our assessment met 100 percent of the categories. Departments are only required to meet 80 percent. All of these are critical. There is now a section on college campuses that has not been addressed in the past.”

This award is reinforcement to the phenomenal work the officers do, Weimer said.

“(The award) helps validate the hard work that we do,” Weimer said. “We do not want to be the status quo. It validates to them that they are doing a good job. The department pushes itself to look to be the best we can in the field.”

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