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Posted by: kwflatbed

DANIEL BARBARISI
The Providence Journal





CRANSTON - The Police Department is about to begin a formal process that its officers say will radically change the face of the department over the next three years.

For more than a year, the department has been laying the groundwork for a bid to earn national accreditation, and department leaders say it's already wrought massive changes for the better in a force that needed a little introspection.

The department hopes to win the seal of approval of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a private group that evaluates law enforcement agencies against 446 standards in areas ranging from fiscal management to cellblock safety and station security.

This month, the department will sign a three-year deal with the Virginia-based agency, under which it will pursue initiatives to meet the agency's standards.

The Cranston department knew it had work to do before it could even start the official application process. An outside audit two years ago identified a number of fundamental problems in the department -- from its poor facilities to its lack of codified policies and procedures -- and recommended pursuing accreditation as a way of addressing the lacks in a structured way.

"We all know there were deficiencies in the Cranston Police Department," said Capt. Kevin Lynch, one of two officers overseeing the process, told the City Council last night in a presentation.

Instead of immediately applying for accreditation, the department put Lynch and Lt. Vincent McAteer in charge of getting ready for it, and spent the last year laying the foundation. Last weekend, the department completed a policies and procedures manual, a guidebook telling officers what to do in almost any situation.

It was, Lynch said, a major step forward and one that should put the department ahead of the game in the accreditation process.

In the past year, the drive towards accreditation has also helped in other areas. Department leaders now meet weekly to discuss issues and review expenditures.

And when the police chief saw troubling departmental statistics on disproportionate traffic stops by race, he went to Lynch and McAteer and asked if the national rating organization had standards and methods for addressing such problems.

The department applied the organization's standards and training, and saw an immediate and marked turnaround, Lynch said.

The city's new police headquarters, under construction at Garfield and Cranston Streets, was designed with accreditation in mind, and is expected to meet substantially all of the agency's standards for facilities.

"It's truly a process that changes a police department subtly but completely," McAteer said of the accreditation effort.

It should take two to three years for Cranston to reach the point where it believes an accreditation team is ready to review the city. The team will spend three to five days in the city.

If Cranston's force wins accreditation -- which carries a term of three years -- it will be among only 500 departments nationwide to do so.

To be accredited, a law-enforcement agency must meet at least 80 percent of the commission's standards. Only six agencies in Rhode Island are currently certified: the Warwick, Newport, Smithfield and Cumberland departments, the Rhode Island State Police and the Brown University police force.

Applying for accreditation will cost just over $16,000, payable over the three-year period. A state grant has been secured to cover at least the first year's payment.

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