During the Ohio Collaborative Law Enforcement Accreditation Program conference in April, the OCLEAP Board formally awarded the Sidney Police Department with State Law Enforcement Accreditation status. We are among the first 10 agencies in the State of Ohio to receive this honor.
Over the course of 2023 and 2024, the Sidney Police Department had to meet over 31 standards to receive accreditation. All the proofs of compliance, mandatory training, updating procedures, policy creation, revision, and acknowledgement, along with several on-site audits, helped us raise our standards as a professional law enforcement agency whose members follow best practices. The department has shown professionalism time and again as we maneuvered through this process. The OCLEAP board was especially impressed that we completed this process during the time when we were significantly down personnel. We were fortunate that we completed this process in less than 6-months-those coming after us will be allowed up to 18-months to complete accreditation processes.
We will continue to move forward in our commitment to the accreditation process, and will also continue to provide formal and informal training (to include operational, scenario-based training) so as not to neglect that part of our profession. We will continue to train for what we may have to do. Policy training is but one key component to law enforcement professionalism.
We are proud of the fact that we are doing what we said we would for each other and our community: to serve with professionalism, integrity, courage, and compassion.