To determine if accreditation or certification is an answer to today ’ s problems , one can simply start by examining the beginning of the accreditation movement . Looking for a way to evaluate their departments , several agencies decided to seek out a professional organization to assess their efforts . Agencies became engaged in the accreditation process “ to address the public outcry against the sometimes-violent police responses to the civil rights and antiwar protests of the 1960s and 1970s ” 3 ( p . 298 ). At the same time , some critics have claimed the accreditation process was
“ mostly an empty , symbolic exercise ”. 4 One of the primary goals of the accreditation process , and what the standards and procedures are intended to show the citizens , is the agency ’ s commitment to meeting higher standards of performance and levels of transparency with the public . This cannot be measured by simply examining crime rates or raw numbers . Rather , a better measurement is the level of confidence and satisfaction the community has in its police department .
Previous studies have been conducted comparing use of force ,
complaints , reporting , and measuring success , but have largely been inconclusive due to the complexities of the accreditation process . At the same time , there have been many studies of the impact of accreditation in law enforcement , no study viewed the citizens ’ perception of agencies that either had or did not have accreditation . To increase the number of state certified agencies , it is incumbent on all departments to demonstrate there is value added from the process . One such way to measure the success of the program is to ask the citizens if they see benefit in the process .
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