By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Last weekend, the Peachtree City Police Department received its national reaccreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc.

This is the department's second reaccreditation. It was first accredited by the group in 1992, making Peachtree City the 243rd department in the nation to do so.

The honor was bestowed after what is typically a grueling interview process with the commission, said Peachtree City Police Chief Jim Murray. The commissioners typically grill department representatives before approving or failing to approve the department for accreditation.

When Peachtree City's police officials were interviewed, however, only one commissioner had any questions. And he had only one: “I want you to tell us as the commission how we can do a better job because you are doing a better job than us.”

Murray said that statement was very flattering of the department's efforts to maintain its accreditation, which the commission can choose to revoke if it sees fit. It also gave pride to the nine officers who chose to attend the reaccreditation hearing on their own time and their own dime, Murray said.

“Nobody says we're perfect, but this is one of the ways we're trying to get better at what we do,” Murray added.

Sgt. Rosanna Dove is the department's reaccreditation manager. She makes sure the department follows all the rules and regulations needed to keep the department's accreditation, Murray said.

Individual officers also are involved in the accreditation process on a daily basis relating to the activities they do, the chief added.

“This is a team effort,” Murray said.

The accreditation process requires the departments to follow 276 mandatory standards “to the letter,” said Murray. Those standards cover such issues as use of deadly force, crime prevention and fiscal management. Far more topics are actually covered by the standards, which each have about 25 to 30 substandards that must also be followed to the letter, Murray noted.

In addition to making sure that policies are in place for those issues, the standards also require that when certain incidents take place, they must be evaluated to insure policies and procedures were followed, Murray said. That goes for times when deadly force is used all the way to how the department handles special details like the Fourth of July parade.

“You have to evaluate what happened so you can see how you can do it better,” Murray said.

The standards also cover what each police car should be equipped with and various other similar details the agencies must adhere to, Murray said.

Also, each department must follow at least 80 percent of non-mandatory standards, he added.

Peachtree City met 99 percent of those non-mandatory standards, Murray noted.

“We don't just want to pass. We want to do exceptionally well,” Murray said.

One of the standards Peachtree City couldn't meet had to do with its holding facility, which can't house prisoners for more than four hours at a time, Murray explained.

To gain reaccreditation, the department was inspected in April by a team of law enforcement officers from outside the state. In addition to reviewing files the department keeps on hand, the team members also rode with patrolmen on the midnight shift and asked questions of members of the public.

That evaluation process also included a public hearing to allow for citizen comment on the operations of the Police Department.

There are fewer than 500 nationally accredited law enforcement agencies in the nation out of over 18,000 in existence, Murray said.

Maj. Mike DuPree helps evaluate other agencies for accreditation, and that in turn helps the Peachtree City Police Department get new ideas for improving its reaccreditation process, Murray said.

Though Peachtree City is the 13th largest city in Georgia, it has a very low crime rate, Murray said. He also said the 53 officers staffing the department provides a lower number of police officers per citizen than the national average.

Peachtree City has 1.6 officers per 1,000 citizens compared to a normal rate of 1.8 officers per 1,000 citizens for cities with populations under 50,000.

“We handle a lot of calls and we do a lot of programs that other agencies have dropped,” Murray noted.

The reaccreditation certificate will be presented to the City Council sometime in September. Later, a public reception will mark the occasion, Murray said.

“It's a very prestigious honor,” he said.