Supporting Tribal Agency Accreditation

ALEAP was awarded the FY2021 Community Policing Development Program grant for use in assisting tribal agencies to achieve state accreditation. This grant will support and enhance existing tribal law enforcement agencies to attain state accreditation by providing funding, a Tribal Liaison, technical assistance, technology upgrades, and more.

Why Accreditation?

Today, of Arizona's 22 Federally recognized tribes, 18 have their own law enforcement services, each with their own tribal cultures, customs, language, and traditions; however, tribal law enforcement agencies don't have to create a culture of accountability from scratch. The nature of police work comes with a long history of traditions and deeply held values. Police all over the world share core values such honor, bravery, and the duty to protect.

To create a culture of accountability in law enforcement, departments must emphasize values such as integrity, responsibility, and transparency. It's impossible to hold police officers accountable if there are no formal rules to hold them to. A department's policy manual outlines department expectations and sets clearly defined limits of acceptable behavior by their personnel. This is the universal standard for accountability. If there is a consistent issue or problem within the department, that can mean one of two things: Either there isn't a quality policy in place, or the department is failing to appropriately apply the existing policy. Either way, it's a problem.

Law Enforcement Accreditation is a progressive and time-proven method of assisting law enforcement agencies in measuring and improving their overall performance as compared to a set of industry best-practice standards. In 2018, the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police (AACOP) identified a gap in accreditation services to law enforcement agencies in the state of Arizona that did not have the resources to join the national accreditation program and developed the Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program (ALEAP) to address this gap.

The foundation of accreditation by the ALEAP program lies in the adoption of the 175 industry best-practice standards containing a clear statement of professional objectives focusing on high-risk, high-liability areas such as the use of force, vehicle operations/pursuits, property and evidence, and critical incident response. Participating agencies conduct a thorough self-analysis to determine how existing operations can be adapted to meet these standards. When the procedures are in place, a team of trained assessors verifies that applicable standards have been successfully implemented.

TRIBAL PROGRAM ASSISTANCE

The ALEAP Program Manager and ALEAP Tribal Agency Liaison will be responsible for training all agency Accreditation Managers within the first 60 days of the program.

This training will consist of the history of accreditation, the goals and timelines for successful accreditation, collecting written directives and proofs of compliance, managing the assessment through an electronic document management system, legal update training, and development of an "Accreditation Checklist" for agency Accreditation Managers, Accreditation "Quick Facts" sheets for all departmental personnel to get buy-in from rank and file personnel as well as resources for tribal government leaders to better understand the accreditation process and the need for their agencies to become accredited.

ALEAP has partnered with Arizona-based legal firm, Edwards & Amato P.C., to offer all tribal agencies in the accreditation program a complete policy manual, which when adopted by the tribal government, is compliant with ALL ALEAP STANDARDS.

The policy manual is consistent with all State, Federal, Local and Tribal laws and current case law, and is CUSTOMIZABLE to meet community expectations and tribal customs.

This program will eliminate ALL fees associated with becoming accredited.

This will include membership for the Chief and two command staff into the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police a savings of $9,800 for the seven pilot agencies over the 24-month grant period

Elimination of all ALEAP agency application fees and all costs associated with the onsite assessments, a savings of $1000 per agency ($7,000 total) for a total of $16,800 in eliminated fees.

Each agency will receive a subscription to PowerDMS at no cost. This will save each of the seven agencies $1,200 over two years, for a total savings of $8,400. ALEAP will also provide each enrolled agencies Accreditation Manager a tablet to allow them to upload proofs of compliance from the field.

The ALEAP program has contracted with PowerDMS to be the sole provider of accreditation document management services and is the only ALEAP Commission approved way to complete an accreditation assessment in Arizona. Once the program period is over, AACOP will continue to pay for the PowerDMS subscription for as long as they remain active in the accreditation program.

As part of the program, ALEAP also provides a smartphone app, in iOS and Android, to allow users to easily access the standards manual, program guide, and other information from anywhere.

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Supporting Tribal Agency Accreditation

Why Accreditation?

TRIBAL PROGRAM ASSISTANCE

The Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program is a program of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police. For more information, click below.

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