“This is a reflection of the fact that our department sets high standards for itself, that it works then to hold itself to those standards day in and day out,” Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said.
This past weekend, Hartford police was recognized with a national accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies for their policies and practices. This is the first time in its history that Hartford police have earned the recognition.
“We strive to be better for our community every day, and we strive to make them proud, and this is just another example of what we’re doing to try and show everybody what policing in this community means to us, and how important it is that we get it right,” Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody said.
Thody said roughly 25% of the state’s police departments have earned this recognition, but said it’s even more difficult for departments in larger cities that have more services and standards for review.
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“The City of Hartford is the only city among the five largest cities in Connecticut to have received this CALEA Accreditation, and we’re just one of two communities among the top 10 largest communities in the state of Connecticut,” Bronin said.
The accreditation process began nearly a decade ago, when Thody said the department started to overhaul its antiquated policy book to ensure the most up-to-date practices were being enforced.
“A lot of the first couple of years was really going through those 500 or so policies, seeing what’s still relevant today and what’s not, and creating documents that were usable,” Thody said. “We made the decision and the chief supported the decision that we would rebuild our policy manual from the ground up instead of kind of tweaking them to check a box.”
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For the past few months, CALEA has assessed those updates before granting the accreditation this past weekend.
Thody called this award a foundation that the department can continue to build off moving forward.
“This shows our policies are sound, our training is sound, we have supervisors that are making sure that the work is being done in the best way possible, but the work never stops,” he said.
