September 25, 2008
UWPD renews its national accreditation
Over the summer, the UW Police Department got its national accreditation renewed — which is a tougher process than getting accredited in the first place.
UWPD first earned national accreditation in 2005, but must reapply every three years to keep its status current, said Ray Wittmier, longtime UWPD assistant chief now serving as interim chief.
The status is conferred by the Fairfax, Va.-based Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), whose representatives — called assessors — visited campus for five days in April to evaluate the department and announced their findings at the commission’s annual conference in July.
Speaking of the 2005 process, Wittmier said, “One of the things they tell you is, as far as they go, this is the easier one. Reaccreditation is a lot harder — they scrutinize you to a greater degree.”
That scrutiny this year, he said, involved reviewing all of the department’s policies to ensure they comply with the 450 standards set by CALEA as well as interviewing officers including Wittmier and Shawna Woodard, the department’s accreditation manager.
“They went through our policies and procedures, they went on ride-alongs, they inspected our facilities and dispatch center — they looked at all facets of our department,” Wittmier said.
The department fared well on the review, he said. “They felt our policies were right where they needed to be … they only found two that needed any kind of tweaking and they were minor, almost wordsmithing issues.”
Wittmier praised Woodard for keeping the department focused on accreditation needs despite a busy schedule. “She really kind of stayed on top of it. She made sure that people were doing what they are supposed to do.”
Staff diversity is also evaluated as part of the accreditation process, Wittmier said — an area UWPD excels in. “We met the levels of basically every group out there within the available hiring pool.” The department excels particularly in its hiring of women, with 23 percent of the force female — which exceeds the national standard. Wittmier said, “There may not be a department of medium to large size in the country that can say that. We’ve done very well.”
Relatively few university police forces are nationally accredited. There are about 1,000 campus police departments in the country, Wittmier said, and only 43 have sought and achieved national accreditation. The UW is the only institution of higher education in Washington that has been nationally accredited.
Why pursue national accreditation? “To hold yourself to a higher standard,” Wittmier said. “When you have the right policies and procedures in place and are making sure you are following those, and you have this oversight organization checking you — one, it makes you do the right things and two, it should be comforting to the community to know that we welcome and invite that oversight.”
