Westville Police explain CALEA accreditation, say it improves accountability and training

WESTVILLE — Westville police officials told the City Council at a May work session that CALEA accreditation has required them to standardize policies, document compliance and continuously re-evaluate training and operations.

Accreditation manager Dave Magnatelli, who identified himself as the city’s policy compliance and accreditation manager, said CALEA requires agencies both to write policies that meet national standards and provide proofs that those policies are followed. “It’s a way of holding ourselves accountable, to make sure that not only, do we have policies, but we are doing what we say we’re doing,” Magnatelli said.

Magnatelli walked council members through the mechanics of accreditation and daily administration. He said the CALEA program the division follows contains 185 standards and 459 subcomponents — a total he said equates to 644 individual compliance items — and that his office typically uploads “anywhere between 700 and a thousand proofs every year” within a defined proofing year. He described the requirements as time-sensitive, noting CALEA checks exact dates for recurring tasks such as firearms qualification…