INDIAN RIVER COUNTY – The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office has been selected as a CALEA Flagship Agency.
The Sheriff’s Office received the Flagship and Meritorious Award in addition to its seventh accreditation award by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA) at the CALEA conference in Bethesda, Md., on March 26.
“It is imperative to set the standards higher in order to benefit the agency, its members, and the community we serve,” said Sheriff Deryl Loar in a prepared statement.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office was only one of four law enforcement agencies in the State of Florida to receive the Flagship Award at the awards banquet. The Flagship Agency designation is awarded to the top 20 percent of public safety agencies internationally that have demonstrated success in the accreditation process.
Currently there are over 1,000 agencies internationally that are CALEA accredited. During the intense CALEA Commission review, the CALEA Commissioners stated they were highly impressed with the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office and the overall professionalism of the agency and its members, which is contributed to the leadership by Sheriff Deryl Loar.
The 21-member Commission is composed of 11 law enforcement professionals and 10 representatives from the public and private sectors.
Selection of Flagship agencies is based primarily on the agency’s past awards, current assessment and overall professional standing in the public safety community.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office was chosen as a Flagship Agency based on a spotless on-site assessment consisting of no non-compliance issues, no applied discretion and no file maintenance issues regarding any of the 464 accreditation standards the agency showed compliance with during the November 2010 on-site assessment.
The Sheriff’s Office also displayed sound procedures and practice regarding life, safety, and security throughout the agency and service community.
The Flagship program also serves to provide other agencies seeking accreditation with models of “best practices” on how to address compliance, policy development, file maintenance, and other issues relating to the accreditation process.
Maintaining the agency’s accredited status is a way to also strengthen crime prevention; formalize management procedures; establish fair and nondiscriminatory personnel practices; improve service delivery; strengthen interagency cooperation and coordination; and increase community and personnel confidence in the agency.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office was also awarded the Meritorious Award for the second time since the agency has held the CALEA accredited status for the last 20 continuous years.
Also in early 2009, the agency began the initial steps to becoming accredited by the Florida Corrections Accreditation Commission. In less than one year, the jail received its initial accreditation award in February 2010 as well as its second reaccreditation award by the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation.
The State of Florida has 224 law enforcement agencies that are accredited by at least one of three accrediting bodies. Of those agencies only 47 are CALEA law enforcement accredited, 141 are CFA accredited and 36 are FCAC accredited.
Since February 2010, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office has become one of only 11 agencies in the State of Florida to be accredited by CALEA, CFA and FCAC.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office is considered a triple-crown accredited agency, which displays a benchmark to the professionalism of the law enforcement industry.