Accreditation

Elizabeth Patrick

Accreditation Professional

Phone: (386) 586-4857

Accreditation is a coveted award that symbolizes professionalism, excellence, and competence. Accreditation streamlines operations, providing more consistency and more effective deployment of agency manpower.

Accreditation increases the law enforcement agency’s ability to prevent and control crime through more effective and efficient delivery of law enforcement services to the community it serves. Accreditation enhances community understanding of the law enforcement agency and its role in the community, as well as its goals and objectives.

Citizen confidence in the policies and practices of the agency is increased. Accreditation increases cooperation and coordination with other law enforcement agencies and other branches of the criminal justice system. The accreditation standards provide norms against which agency performance can be measured and monitored over time.

In 1993, the Florida Legislature enacted a law which directed that the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Police Chiefs Association create a voluntary law enforcement accreditation program. Representatives from these associations developed a process for accreditation which required compliance with more than 250 professional standards designed specifically for Florida Law Enforcement Agencies.

The current requirements for accreditation mandate that the agency comply with approximately 278 standards in order to receive accredited status. Each of these standards has multiple sub-components. These standards encompass all aspects of the department’s policies and procedures, management, operations, and support services.

The Re-accreditation process is far more demanding than initial accreditation. The agency must prove a three year track record of compliance with all standards. These accreditation compliant policies and procedures, management practices, and operations procedures only needed to be established in order to obtain initial accreditation.

The assessment team members arrived at the Flagler County Sheriff's Office on December 4, 2007 and the team members consisted of the law enforcement members from the Clearwater Police Department, the Delray Beach Police Department and the MCCO – Statewide Training Department of Transportation.

A debriefing of this team, concluded that there were no issues with this on-site and that the on-site was exemplarily and the files were easy to comprehend.

From Left to Right - Ms. Peg Gant-Executive Director Commission for Florida Law Enforcement, Ms. Elizabeth Patrick-FCSO, Sheriff Donald W. Fleming- FCSO, Chief. Peter Paulding-Chair Gulf Breeze Police Dept., Ms. Wendy Bentzley-FCSO, Chief Rick Look-FCSO

At the Flagler County Sheriff's Office Annual Awards Dinner held on Saturday, February 2, 2008, the Sheriff’s Outstanding Service Award was presented to the Accreditation Section.

A significant component of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office Accreditation Section is that it reinforces the Agency’s ability to maintain the highest standards of professional law enforcement services through the Accreditation process.