Sheriff’s Office nationally reaccredited – receives excellence award

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office was nationally reaccredited this past weekend at the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement conference held in Mobile, Alabama. Sheriff Rick Ramsay traveled to Mobile to accept the reaccreditation and to accept the added “Excellence Award”.

Requirements for receiving the Excellence Award are arduous, requiring compliance with CALEA’s Gold Standard Assessment model, a more rigorous form of assessment that measures both compliance with accreditation requirements as well as the impact of accreditation on an agency. This gold standard model involves a more intensive focus by assessors where they not only review files and policies to ensure they are in compliance, they also follow up closely to ensure the agency practices those policies in the field.

The Excellence Award is given to an agency after a unanimous recommendation of support from the CALEA Review Committee.

“We work hard to ensure we are a top notch, professional law enforcement agency,” said Sheriff Rick Ramsay. “Accreditation on state and national levels ensures outside experts take a look at what we are doing and give us input on how to improve our operations. We hold five separate accreditations in law enforcement, corrections and in jail healthcare. In addition, we were awarded the triple-crown award from the National Sheriff’s Association – an award we are extremely proud of.”

The Triple Crown Award is given to Sheriff's Offices who achieve simultaneous accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation (CAC) of the American Correctional Association, The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement (CALEA) and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC). According to the NSA web site, as of fall of 2013, only 42 Sheriff’s Offices in the country hold this award, 8 of them being in the state of Florida.

For more information, visit the CALEA website at http://www.calea.org/