Public
Safety Seeks Accreditation
Director of
Public Safety Paul L. Ominsky is pleased to announce that on March
5, 2008 the Mount Holyoke College Department of Public Safety was
re-accredited by the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission,
Inc.
The Department was first
certified in 2003 and accredited in 2005, and became the first college
or university department to achieve either status. Achieving accreditation
from the Commission is the highest award given, and it is a recognition
that is highly regarded by the law enforcement community. Currently,
only 16 agencies are certified (1 campus public safety agency) and
27 are accredited (2 other campus agencies).
Accreditation is a self-initiated
evaluation process by which law enforcement departments strive to
meet and maintain standards that have been established for the profession
- by the profession. These carefully selected standards reflect
critical areas of police management, operations, and technical support
activities. They cover areas such as policy development, emergency
response planning, training, communications, property and evidence
handling, use of force, and prisoner transportation. The program
not only sets standards for the law enforcement profession within
the Commonwealth, but also for the delivery of police services to
the community.
Questions regarding
the accreditation process can be forwarded to one of the Department’s
accreditation managers, Associate Director Barbara Arrighi, barrighi@mtholyoke.edu
or Jeanne Tripp, jtripp@mtholyoke.edu.
We would like
to thank all of our staff who worked so hard to maintain this status,
especially our Accreditation Fellow, Caralie Cahill '08.
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