Tweet
Some time ago, I had the privilege of being invited to participate in a review of the CALEA standards for accreditation of police departments. Many of you will have seen the legend "Accredited Police Agency" or something similar on police squads in your area...CALEA is the accreditor. You can read about them at their website here (and you'll discover that they also accredit police academies and communications centers as well).
In particular, if you visit the site, click on the link toward the bottom of the page for the discussion about the favorable impact that accreditation has on the legal liabilities of police agencies - most interesting, indeed. Other materials discuss other benefits of accreditation, and I don't think you'll have much trouble translating much of this to our side of the protective domain.
I've wondered whether or not such might not be a bad idea on our own side of the "thin blue line" as well if it would mean that clients would be able to identify agencies that have met certain standards (and clients would have access to what these standards are, of course).
It would, of course, take real champions of such an idea in the industry to make something like this work...and the standards would have to be such that smaller agencies, and not just the "big guys", could achieve accreditation - just as smaller police agencies can meet CALEA standards. No doubt, the road to establishing standards would be difficult and require hard lifting...but what was ever worthwhile that came easy?
...and who knows? Maybe if a consortium of security agencies got together and approached CALEA, they would be interested in providing guidance on setting up such a program, or perhaps even interested in becoming involved to a greater level in helping to develop the standards and the accreditation process. You just never know what positive results can come from any effort we make to upgrade our industry, and certainly there are many lessons we can learn from the public side in that regard.
In particular, if you visit the site, click on the link toward the bottom of the page for the discussion about the favorable impact that accreditation has on the legal liabilities of police agencies - most interesting, indeed. Other materials discuss other benefits of accreditation, and I don't think you'll have much trouble translating much of this to our side of the protective domain.
I've wondered whether or not such might not be a bad idea on our own side of the "thin blue line" as well if it would mean that clients would be able to identify agencies that have met certain standards (and clients would have access to what these standards are, of course).
It would, of course, take real champions of such an idea in the industry to make something like this work...and the standards would have to be such that smaller agencies, and not just the "big guys", could achieve accreditation - just as smaller police agencies can meet CALEA standards. No doubt, the road to establishing standards would be difficult and require hard lifting...but what was ever worthwhile that came easy?
...and who knows? Maybe if a consortium of security agencies got together and approached CALEA, they would be interested in providing guidance on setting up such a program, or perhaps even interested in becoming involved to a greater level in helping to develop the standards and the accreditation process. You just never know what positive results can come from any effort we make to upgrade our industry, and certainly there are many lessons we can learn from the public side in that regard.
Comment