Volume 36, No. 5 - September/October 2006 Campus Law ... - IACLEA

Accreditation Fee for CALEA-accredited
Agencies Approved
By Jack Leonard, Accreditation Coordinator
IACLEA’s Accreditation Commission has
approved a process for institutions that
wish to seek IACLEA accreditation and are
already accredited by the Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies,
Inc. (CALEA). To support this initiative,
the IACLEA Finance Committee has
approved a new fee structure. It is expected
that this plan will encourage eligible
campus law enforcement agencies
to seek and retain CALEA accreditation,
while also achieving the “Gold Standard”
of IACLEA Accreditation.
During the development of the accreditation
program, it was IACLEA’s intention
to join the Alliance Program, offered
by CALEA. By doing so, sworn campus
law enforcement departments could
simultaneously attain IACLEA accreditation
and CALEA recognition, a preliminary
achievement toward full CALEA accreditation.
However, while we were planning
our program, CALEA instituted several
restrictions governing its Alliance partners’
activities. Chief among these new regulations
was the prohibition against adopting
anything other than their “core” standards,
or those standards that address life,
heath and safety issues.
While the application of the core standards
would have been sufficient for our
sworn members to achieve recognition
status with CALEA, the IACLEA Accreditation
Commission felt that the IACLEA program
needed to be broader and more
comprehensive, particularly for those
non-sworn departments that could not
advance to full CALEA accreditation.
IACLEA is intent on providing an accreditation
program that is universally applicable.
The CALEA standards selected for
the IACLEA program were deemed essential
to the effective and professional
administration of a campus public safety
agency, irrespective of its size and/or
sworn status. In making those selections,
the IACLEA Accreditation Commission did
not want to make any distinction between
a sworn and non-sworn department when
assessing their conformance to “best practice”
principles of organization and management.
Consequently, efforts were undertaken
to negotiate a modified Alliance
agreement that would provide IACLEA
with an exemption from the restriction
of using only the “core” standards.
Unfortunately, we were informed that
the CALEA Commission, at their July meeting
in Lexington, Kentucky, rejected our
proposal to modify their Alliance Program.
The failure to achieve an Alliance agreement
with CALEA means that our sworn
members will be unable to simultaneously
achieve IACLEA accreditation and
CALEA recognition through the same process.
However, because the CALEA standards
form the foundation of the IACLEA
program, sworn agencies may move relatively
seamlessly between the complementary
programs. For example, the
IACLEA Accreditation Commission has
recently approved a process by which
CALEA-accredited agencies may acquire
IACLEA accreditation through “comparative
compliance.”
These departments would have to
prove their CALEA-accredited status by
submitting their most recent CALEA onsite
report and a copy of the letter notifying
them of their CALEA accreditation or
re-accreditation. They would also have to
demonstrate compliance with the IACLEAspecific
standards. Since the unique IACLEA
standards all address campus crime reporting,
the Accreditation Commission has decided
that the candidate agencies will
forego an on-site assessment. Instead, the
Accreditation Commission will rely on a
review of the standard files by having the
departments mail them to IACLEA. Once
IACLEA confirms a department’s compliance
with its standards, the agency would
receive IACLEA accreditation that would
run concurrently with their CALEA accreditation.
On the anniversary of its CALEA
accreditation, the department would have
to resubmit its compliance documentation
and undergo another review.
IACLEA’s Finance Committee has reviewed
the process and approved a fee
for those campus public safety agencies
that seek IACLEA accreditation and are
already accredited by the CALEA. The fee
for CALEA-accredited departments that
wish to pursue IACLEA accreditation will
be $450. Initially, the fee will be prorated,
based on the number of years left on the
agency’s CALEA accreditation (examples:
one year = $150, two years = $300, three
years = $450).
The candidate agency will complete
an application/contract, submit the required
compliance documentation and
remit a check in the amount of $150 for
every year (or portion thereof) left on
their CALEA accreditation. The IACLEA
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20 / Campus Law Enforcement Journal