Staff report

ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. – Both the University of Florida Police Department (UFPD) and Alachua County Sheriff’s Office Combined Communications Center (CCC) will be conducting on-site assessments by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) at the end of the month.

Initially accredited in 1996, UFPD is seeking to maintain its accreditation with CALEA, whose process is to provide UFPD with valuable information to support the agency’s continuous improvement and align UFPD practices with nationwide best practices for law enforcement.

CCC was first accredited by CALEA in 2002 and was reaccredited for the third consecutive time in March 2011. In 2008 and 2011, the CCC received the distinguished “Flagship Award” from CALEA, awarded only to the most successful CALEA-accredited agencies in recognition of their achievements and expertise. In March 2014, the CCC achieved its inaugural Gold Standard Award, which emphasizes processes and outcomes. The most recent assessment took place in October 2020, resulting in a seventh reaccreditation in March 2021.

As part of CALEA’s accreditation process, the public is welcome to provide comments, commendations, and other feedback about the quality of the agencies’ services in compliance with CALEA standards and overall candidacy for accredited status.

For UFPD, the public can leave comments on the UFPD Transparency page or go directly to the CALEA comments portal.

For the CCC, the public can call 352-264-6696; a copy of the standards can be obtained by calling 352-382-3030.

CALEA is not an investigatory body, and members of the public should not submit information for such purposes. Comments will be considered in context to their relevancy to FDLE’s compliance with the standards and tenets of CALEA accreditation.  CALEA maintains the Public Comments Portal, and the feedback provided goes straight to CALEA.