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CASE #6 (Issue #64: May 1997)Submitted by Lt. Richard Meier, Ridgewood, (New Jersey) Police Department and President of the New Jersey Police Accreditation Coalition
Case in point: My agency came under fire recently by the news media for not reporting an alleged, aggravated, sexual assault on a female juvenile by a male adult and three male juveniles. Officers promptly investigated the complaint when it was received; the appropriate county law enforcement agency was called in per investigative guidelines; and complaints were signed and arrests immediately effected. Under our written "Public Information" procedure, which is based on state and county guidelines, our agency was not privileged to release information on this incident. All press releases would have to be issued by the investigating county agency. In addition, under our "Victim-Witness" procedures, we would not release the name of a sexual assault victim to the news media. Approximately three weeks after the initial arrests, a newspaper reporter received information from an unknown source, and began a series of headline articles in the county newspaper inferring that our agency had deliberately withheld the story from the press. The reporter was not satisfied with the information he had received and decided to put it out to he Associated Press, which caused every news television station in this area to set up camp in our jurisdiction. After five days of taking "heat" from various media organizations, we showed the public that our Department had indeed followed our own accreditation-based guidelines, which included State and County procedures. On the sixth day, the county newspaper published a glowing biographical article on our chief, Louis Mader, and also indicated that he was a "by-the-book Chief." To quote my chief at a recent departmental meeting, "if someone's going to drop the ball, let it not be us." By living up to a national accreditation standards established by CALEA, and complying with the standards on public information, our agency was able to withstand the heat and remain a professional law enforcement agency.
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Many professional law enforcement executives are eager to provide
examples of how being an internationally-accredited agency aided their agency. Part
of the self-assessment phase of the accreditation process is used to
formulate written directives, or establish policies and procedures for the men and
women of the agency to use as a guide. These directives must be researched
and constructed so that they can be followed easily, and comply with
previously issued State and local law enforcement guidelines and laws.
