On June 16, 2020, the President of the United States signed into law an Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities.
The Executive Order affirms what we at PowerDMS believe,
“Law enforcement officers provide the essential protection that all Americans require to raise their families and lead productive lives.”
The law enforcement profession is essential, and it also comes with difficult challenges. The executive order goes on to provide guidance for how law enforcement agencies should continue to advance the profession to better serve their communities.
“State and local law enforcement agencies must constantly assess and improve their practices and policies to ensure transparent, safe, and accountable delivery of law enforcement services to their communities.”
This statement is directly tied to our mission at PowerDMS … to help our customers increase trust and efficiency by simplifying how they manage and share crucial information. For the past 20 years, PowerDMS has been a trusted technology partner to the law enforcement community, serving as the policy, training, and accreditation management solution for almost 3,000 agencies.
We have been there before, helping law enforcement agencies in times of crisis. In 2015, Baltimore Police Department adopted PowerDMS as they looked to make changes to the way they addressed policies and accountability in their department. PowerDMS provides the tools necessary for law enforcement leaders to collaborate and consistently review their agency’s practices and policies to ensure they are constitutional, effective, and safe.
Today, roughly 30% of officers across the country access PowerDMS to receive training and electronically sign the policies and procedures established by their agency. We believe having the tools to require attestations and the ability for officers to access critical information whenever and wherever they need, helps to hold individuals accountable in their delivery of law enforcement services.
Law enforcement agencies also rely on the PowerDMS platform to help them share information with their communities. PowerDMS’s public facing documents feature allows departments to identify specific policies and information stored in PowerDMS and make those documents available to the public. When policies are changed in PowerDMS, the public then has instant access to the newly published versions. Right now law enforcement agencies are using this feature to be transparent and have open conversations with their community in real time.
The Executive Order also states,
“Independent credentialing bodies can accelerate these assessments (of practices and policies), enhance citizen confidence in law enforcement practices, and allow for the identification and correction of internal deficiencies before those deficiencies result in injury to the public or to law enforcement officers.”
At PowerDMS, we believe the pursuit of accreditation by an independent credentialing body is a noble endeavor that helps to improve law enforcement operations and builds trust with local communities. PowerDMS proudly partners with The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA®) and 23 state-level law enforcement credentialing bodies to provide cost effective tools which promote continuous compliance with accreditation standards. The PowerDMS platform has proven to cut the time and staff resources needed to organize and prepare for accreditation and reaccreditation in half.
We understand how stressful this time is for law enforcement agencies and communities all across the country. As a proven technology provider of policy, training, and accreditation software that helps ensure transparent, safe, and accountable delivery of law enforcement services to communities, we are here to help.