Montgomery County (Maryland) Sheriffs Office
by Dennis Pernu
On November 18, 1995, it became official: the Montgomery County (Maryland) Sheriff's Office had earned a place in the upper echelon of the nation's law enforcement community. At a banquet hosted in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, CALEA Executive Director Richard Kitterman announced that Sheriff Ray Kight's office had satisfied the commission's accreditation requirements. The announcement marked the first time that a Maryland sheriff's office achieved the distinguished status.
The announcement was also the culmination of a goal Sheriff Kight set for his department more than seven years earlier. In early 1989, Kight lured Shirley Albrecht away from her work as a Montgomery County personnel manager. Suddenly, Albrecht was a Major in Kight's office, an accreditation manager responsible for seeing the office through accreditation.
The purpose of CALEA accreditation is twofold:
"Meeting CALEA standards makes your agency more professional," Major Albrecht states. "It ultimately makes for a safer environment for your employees, and an environment that protects the rights and civil liberties of your clients. Courts recognize that you have attained a certain professional standard." Today, many agencies across the United States have achieved accredited status, while hundreds more are at some point in the process of pursing it.
What's In It For Me?
Most CALEA accreditation veterans recommend that, as early on as possible, an agency involved in accreditation appoint an officer to work on the project full-time. The designation of a full-time accreditation manager, however, is not always an option. Albrecht was hired as Sheriff Kight's accreditation manager, but she was also responsible for the duties associated with an assistant sheriff.
It was not until January 1995, early in the final year of Montgomery County's accreditation that a team originally assembled to plug away at accreditation in a piecemeal fashion was assigned to it full-time. With Captain Robert Keefer, Sergeant Christine Calantonio, Sergeant Jim Popp, Corporal Zachary Grant, and PFC. Barth Rau, on the job, Albrecht says, "We were able to bring (accreditation) toward fruition." But Albrecht is quick to add, "If I had it to do all over, I would pull out the team in the first year and put them on the project full-time."
In an age of personnel cutbacks, a seven-year side project is a sizable investment for any agency. While Albrecht feels that employees may have been skeptical about accreditation early on, by the time it was within grasp, "They realized all they gave up were five supervisors. And we actually made temporary promotions to fill those positions."
One reason for the original skepticism was the fact that, when the office began accreditation in 1989, deputies were not receiving cost of living raises due to fiscal hardships. Albrecht remembers, "I think they may have been disgruntled, like 'Why is the county spending money on this?'" But by 1994, the raises had returned, and so had employee enthusiasm. "When we had the mock on-site assessment, the deputies performed just beautifully," Albrecht recalls.
Look Before You Leap
Agencies considered accreditation should thoroughly research the process before making a formal commitment. To be eligible, an agency must be either a government entity or a private agency with mandated law enforcement responsibilities and police powers. The eligibility of private agencies is decided on a case-by-case basis.
In 1989, Albrecht and Kight consulted CALEA, purchased a copy of their standards manual, and read all the standards thoroughly (908 at the time). Review of the manual by the agency's staff can lead to a determination of how that agency's policies, procedures, and operational functions stack up against CALEA's requirements. At that time, if the agency decides to pursue accreditation, any areas that might require the expenditure of funds can be addressed and budgeted. Albrecht recalls that after she and Kight reviewed the standards manual, "We thought some standards were a little overly stringent. But we decided to bite the bullet."
Sign On The Dotted Line
After researching and resolving to follow through with accreditation, an agency must sign a contract with CALEA, pay a non-refundable $250 application fee, and complete an agency profile questionnaire. On November 5, 1989, Sheriff Kight and Albrecht filed the appropriate paperwork with CALEA, and the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office was officially on its way to accreditation.
At this point, the agency must also remit to CALEA a "self-assessment fee." The self-assessment fee can either be paid in one lump sum or in two installments, one at the contract's execution and one in the eighteenth month of the self-assessment phase.
Though the self-assessment fee is based on the size of the department, it is often cited as a major obstacle to smaller departments considering accreditation. CALEA points out that, as a non-profit organization, it must rely on the fees to defray its major operating costs.
Though the Montgomery County government sprung for the cost in the case of their sheriff's office, Major Albrecht notes that Sheriff Kight had the foresight to allow for the expenditure in his office's budget. Additionally, as stated in its publication, A Guide for Equitable Sharing of Federally Forfeited Property for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, the U.S. Department of Justice allows agencies to use property forfeiture funds to finance accreditation.
Self-Assessment Phase
After filing applications and paying, at least in part, the application fees, the agency begins a self-assessment phase to determine which of CALEA's standards it does and does not meet. Of the seven years that Montgomery County invested in its accreditation, five were devoted to self-assessment.
Albrecht recommends that agencies in the self-assessment phase take standards that are the hardest to meet, such as those that require physical modifications to facilities, and work on them first. "They are the most time-consuming and the most costly," Albrecht says.
During the self-assessment phase, Albrecht recalls, "We would call some of our fellow agencies and ask them how they handled certain things, especially if they were already accredited." Albrecht adds, "We would call, for instance, the Gaithersburg (Maryland) Police Department, and ask their accreditation manager, "What did you do to meet this?" Montgomery County also received pointers from the Rockville (Maryland) and Montgomery County (Maryland) Police Departments.
The Practice Run
Though not mandatory, it is recommended that a department conduct a mock on-site assessment before CALEA's assessors come to town. Montgomery County enlisted the aid of three Maryland law enforcement officers, two of whom came from accredited agencies, and one of whom was from an agency in the process of accreditation.
The mock assessors who inspected the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office files in June 1995 were also trained CALEA assessors who knew what to look for. "We thought we knew what the (mock assessors) would look for," Albrecht says. "But we weren't sure how picky they'd be or how much documentation they'd require." That naiveté probably worked to the advantage of Albrecht and her colleagues. "What happens is mock assessors come in and they're stricter and require more compliance than the real assessors," Albrecht says. "If you pass the mock assessment, you should breeze through the real one."
The Real Thing
M
ontgomery County's mock assessors were stringent, pointing out areas they felt that the department was weak in. Montgomery County maintains a file for each of the 436 CALEA standards. Albrecht states, "We pulled all of the files identified by the mock assessors and beefed up our documentation. If there was a policy or procedure that had to be rewritten, we rewrote it." When they came to Montgomery County on September 16-20, 1995, the actual on-site assessors divided the 436 files among the three of them and went to work.Accreditation is not granted immediately after the assessors complete their on-site work. In Omaha, Sheriff Kight and five accreditation team members appeared before a three-person CALEA subcommittee to answer follow-up questions. Kight and the accreditation team also listened as the assessment team pointed out areas they felt the department had brought up to standard, as well as areas in which they found the department to be exemplary from the onset.
In Hindsight
One of Shirley Albrecht's duties as accreditation manager was to voice concerns with CALEA concerning what she saw as problem areas in the accreditation process. When Montgomery County decided to pursue accreditation in 1989, CALEA had 908 standards. When CALEA pared those down to 436 in July 1994, it was obviously a source of relief for Montgomery County's accreditation team. "I think they had one of my concerns in mind when they did that," Albrecht ventures. "One of the problems we had was that we run two district court lock-ups, but district courts are actually owned by the state. If we had to bring those facilities up to CALEA processing lock-up standards, we would have been in a real bind, as the state wasn't interested in changes. So I discussed the problem with Mr. Kitterman. In the new standards, (CALEA) really distinguishes between holding cells for court use and those where you place arrestees waiting to go to jail.
On January 23, 1996, Richard Kitterman visited the newly accredited Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and presented the accreditation team with CALEA's Certificate of Accreditation. At the ceremony, Montgomery County Public Safety Committee Chair Betty Krahnke commented on the pride she and her committee has for Sheriff Kight and his office in attaining the honor.
Now that Montgomery County will be up for reaccreditation in 1998, Albrecht says, "We plan to stay on top of it. It don't think accreditation is going to be a strenuous process for us." In addition, CALEA provides updates and conferences for accredited agencies. "Any change (CALEA) makes, we're going to immediately see how it impacts our policies and procedures."
©1996, Callan Publishing, Inc.