Our Accreditation Process is Nearing Completion - July, 2024

We truly hope this month's newsletter finds everyone happy and well. 

It's hot out.  Alright, got that out of the way.

A quick Google search shows that, as of 2018, there were 558 law enforcement agencies in Missouri.  The Callaway County Sheriff's Office is one of 558 law enforcement agencies serving the citizens and visitors of the State of Missouri.  And if all things go well over the next couple of months, the Callaway County Sheriff's Office will be one of 40 law enforcement agencies in Missouri. In fact the 4th out of the 115 Sheriff's Offices, to receive an accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).

CALEA is an international organization with accredited agencies in Mexico, the United States, Canada and even Barbados.  It is one thing to say that a law enforcement agency is a professional public entity.  It is quite another to undertake a lengthy process that requires all policies and procedure within the Sheriff's Office to be vetted by an outside accreditation agency (CALEA).

Think of CALEA as you would any sort of accreditation, of which there are many.  For example, medical providers, schools and tradespeople all have voluntary accreditation options.  What these really are, is a means of quality assurance for the patient, the student, the customer and in the case of the Callaway County Sheriff's Office, the citizen; the victim, the witness and the accused.

Could we provide quality service without an accreditation?  We like to think we have been doing just that.  What we have really found over the past few years of self-assessment is that our policies and procedures overwhelmingly did meet the best practices, but so what?  How do we prove it?  How do we assure people that we provide quality service?  We go through this process.  We provide documentation that not only do we have policies in place that are consistent with best practices, but that we follow those policies.  Then, we invited a group of law enforcement professionals, other accreditation managers from a handful of 39 other accredited Missouri agencies, to examine every detail of our policy manual. 

And then, on July 12th, representatives from CALEA will start remote assessments.  Once this is completed representative(s) from CALEA will come to our office to see our operations, to view our equipment, our evidence storage, our records security and more.  Wish us luck!  And thank you so much for the continued support! CALEA accreditation is an ongoing process with remote assessments yearly and reaccreditation every four years.

Always at your service,

The Callaway County Sheriff's Office