Somerset - After a seven-year haul, the police department should receive its accreditation from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission in the next month or two, Police Chief Joseph C. Ferreira said Friday.

The Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission is part of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and sets standards for the state’s law enforcement agencies wishing to become certified or accredited.

The Massachusetts program is based on national standards set by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Certification and accreditation also allow an independent evaluation of an agency’s operations to ensure departments are operating in a professional, standard manner, and to enable an agency to judge its performance.
The certification level was developed in 2001 to aid agencies that wanted to be recognized for their caliber and wished to start the process of accreditation.

Certification standards require policies, procedures or written directives on agency direction, organization and structure; personnel policies; fiscal management; hiring practices; training and career development; performance management; patrol procedures; investigation procedures; emergency response; internal affairs policies; arrest and evidence procedures.
“The Commission was here last Thursday and Friday,” Ferreira said. “We had four of them on Thursday and three on Friday.
They told us we would get our accreditation at their February or March meeting.” “They examine every standard and policy we have, from the way we file reports to the way we handle prisoners,” Ferreira said. “What accreditation does is make sure that you do things the same way consistently.”

Ferreira added that, although accreditation gives a department a lot of pride, there are concrete benefits, too.
“Studies have shown that accredited police departments are less likely to be sued,” Ferreira said.
“When they are sued, they are more likely to prevail and if they do not prevail, they usually pay less in damages.”
Ferreira said the department achieved certification on Feb. 1, 2007. He said certification involves the meeting of more than 200 separate standards, while accreditation increases that number to more than 300.

“It’s an incredible milestone for us,” Ferreira said.
He noted that less than 10 percent of all Massachusetts police departments are accredited.