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Montreal,
Quebec – The New Jersey State Police
today received a coveted law enforcement
accreditation after more than a year of
intense reviews and grading. The Commission
on Law Enforcement Accreditation (CALEA)
bestowed the honor at a meeting of their
commissioners in Montreal, Quebec.
The
award is the culmination of a two-year process
that included on-site inspections from a
national team representing the commission.
Assessors examined files, conducted panel
interviews of staff members, inspected facilities,
and performed ride-a-longs with troopers.
“This
is a significant achievement for the State
Police and I commend the Division on earning
this important nationally recognized accreditation,”
Attorney General Anne Milgram said.
“We
worked long and hard to reach this goal.
CALEA certification means that we are nationally
recognized as using the best practices in
modern policing and being a model for other
law enforcement agencies,” said Colonel
Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New
Jersey State Police.
There
are 580 CALEA accredited police agencies
with many more currently in the process
to gain that honor. Sixteen state police
and state patrol agencies in the U.S. are
now accredited.
CALEA
was created in 1979 as a credentialing authority
through the efforts of law enforcement’s
major executive associations: International
Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP),
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives (NOBLE), National Sheriff’s
Association (NSA), and Police Executive
Research Forum (PERF).
The
21 CALEA commissioners are appointed by
the four founding law enforcement organizations.
Eleven are law enforcement practitioners
with the remaining selected from both the
public and private sectors including representation
from the business community, academia, and
the judiciary.
Accreditation
brings several significant benefits. Primarily,
it improves public safety services by comparing
the New Jersey State Police to the best
procedures currently used by law enforcement
and raising any non-compliant areas up to
those standards. Additionally, it creates
accountability to a respected benchmarking
group that knows the work of modern policing.
Public trust is bolstered by way of the
transparency involved in the whole CALEA
accreditation process.
For
more information about CALEA, go to www.CALEA.org.
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