Grow Accountability in Law Enforcement with a Policy Management System

Learn how your police department can meet public safety expectations with a policy management system and law enforcement training management software.

August 24, 2022

Article Highlights

Police departments rely on a culture of accountability to ensure officers fulfill their duties and act with integrity. A policy manual provides important guidelines for both internal operations and procedures, and also external service to the community. Using these guidelines, accountability is reinforced through a shared purpose and responsibilities and upheld through policies, procedures, and training.

With a proper system in place that is accessible at all times, law enforcement agencies can keep their entire department aligned and compliant, relying on them to uphold their public safety promise. There are several problems the right policy and law enforcement training management software can solve.

The problem: Limited accountability

Manual, paper-based document storage systems are rooted in the 20th century. Everything is printed out, everyone has a 3-ring binder, and forms are stored in filing cabinets. You can't find anything easily, you don't know who's working from the latest version of any policy, and a manual doesn't do you any good in the field if you left it in the office.

Traditional policy management systems make it hard to efficiently distribute and track policies, signatures of acknowledgement, and any required tests and training. This further complicates the department’s ability to ensure everyone is informed about compliance standards and held accountable for upholding them. The only way to manage this information with a paper system is through regular forms, constant follow-up, and in-person training, which means a lot of scheduling conflict and costly overtime pay.

Manual policy management can easily hinder communication in law enforcement and cause gaps in compliance, which create inconsistencies across the agency that can lead to bigger liability and safety risks. As a result, underprepared and under-trained employees can’t provide their best law enforcement services. All of these issues can erode the community trust you've worked hard to earn. 

The solution: PowerPolicy software for police departments

PowerPolicy by PowerDMS helps law enforcement agencies reliably assign, distribute, and track policies to improve workforce accountability. The platform’s electronic signature tracking feature allows you to assign documents and updated policies to be reviewed and electronically signed by anyone in your department. You can even attach tests to policies that officers must pass to ensure they reviewed and understand all new changes. Each user receives email notifications about their assigned tasks, and incomplete tasks appear on their To-Do checklist. And with PowerPolicy’s dashboards, you can then track statuses of task checklists, training progress, and test scores.

The software also leaves an audit trail that shows a complete history of every document, including changes, comments, approval status, and those who read, edited, or signed it. This shows officers have appropriately reviewed policies and completed their training.

PowerPolicy is also available as a mobile app, which lets employees access all policies and procedures from any location on any mobile phone, tablet, or computer. Plus, the platform's version control function ensures everyone is accessing the most updated documents by automatically archiving past versions.

As a bonus, you can add on PowerDMS's sheriff and police training management software to create, distribute, and track online training courses in PowerPolicy. This tool can help reduce expensive in-person training costs, including data validation and tests to ensure comprehension of policies.

The benefits of a policy management system

One benefit of PowerDMS’s policy management software for police departments is that it was created specifically for the unique structure and needs of law enforcement agencies. PowerPolicy helps reduce liability and maintain compliance by keeping a record of everyone who read and signed each policy, and is up-to-date with training.

PowerPolicy’s online nature helps you save time and money by updating policies four times faster than traditional printing methods. Also, departments that use the software reduce paper printing costs by $11,000 on average. And because all policies are stored in one cloud-based location, you can reduce the time and staff hours it takes to prepare for accreditation. 

Finally, PowerPolicy is ideal for improving communication in law enforcement by strengthening your agency's connectedness and core values. Everyone receives (and can access) the information they need to effectively do their jobs quickly and efficiently. Plus, you can feel confident that your entire department is working from the same version of each policy. PowerPolicy eliminates confusion and gives you visibility to those in your department who are – and aren’t – in compliance with your latest updates and requirements.

Learn more

PowerPolicy improves policy management, compliance, and online training for law enforcement to reduce liability risk, grow accountability, and support public safety services. Schedule a demo to learn how PowerDMS' software for police departments can work for you.

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