First, the good news: though the Bristol Police Department is no longer accredited, it does not appear to be the result of any misdeeds; it seems that the change in the department’s longstanding “Gold” national accreditation status, as certified by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), as well as the state accreditation by the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association (RIPCA), was primarily the result of Police Chief Josue Canario misunderstanding CALEA’s administrative processes.

“There is no smoking gun here,” said Chief Canario.

For background, accreditation is a voluntary process. For comparison, of roughly 18,000 police and public safety departments nationwide, only about 800 have Gold accreditation. Accreditation at that level requires that police departments adhere to some 460 standards. It’s an expensive and time-consuming process, and one that, until recently, required the administrative time of one full-time officer, as well as thousands of dollars in fees, travel, and continuing education costs. Bristol first received Gold accreditation in 2007; it was renewed in November 2016, and was to be good for four years, through November 2020.

CALEA offers “Tier One” accreditation, with less than 200 standards. Eight municipal police departments in Rhode Island, as well as the State Police, currently hold accreditation of at least Tier One status.

“A lot of CALEA’s 460 standards don’t apply to Bristol,” said Town Administrator Steven Contente. “There are standards that would apply to larger cities, rural areas, cities that have their own jails. We had an officer working full time to compile data, and a lot of it just didn’t apply.”

Chief Canario approached Mr. Contente about a year ago, suggesting that a step down to Tier One accreditation would save the town money, and put about three-quarters of the accreditation officer’s hours back out on the street. Mr. Contente agreed that was a good idea — especially in light of the fact that in the years since Bristol earned CALEA accreditation, RIPCA launched its own standards. Bristol was the fourth department in the state to earn RIPCA accreditation — a status that more than 20 of the 39 departments in Rhode Island have yet to earn.

Chief caught by surprise

Where Chief Canario erred was in assuming that he could step down a tier with CALEA, remain accredited through November 2020, and at that time reaccredit with Tier One standards.

According to CALEA Regional Director Paul McMillan, stepping down a level is not routine, though it’s not unheard of, either.

That was not the case. Withdrawing in June, 2018 from Gold accreditation from CALEA, even with more than two years remaining on the term, effectively kicked the Bristol Police Department out of the CALEA system, requiring that they begin the process of accreditation, at Tier One, from the beginning.

What’s more, given that RIPCA’s standards are less stringent than CALEA’s, RIPCA “piggybacks” on CALEA’s accreditation process. CALEA accreditation ticks off all but a handful of the boxes when applying for RIPCA accreditation. “There are 12 standards that are unique to Rhode Island,” said Mr. Contente. “The rest are established by CALEA accreditation.”

“Our status change with CALEA meant that our status with RIPCA went under automatic review,” said Chief Canario.

“In all fairness, I do not think that the chief realized that was going to happen,” said Mr. Contente. “He didn’t see that coming.”

The review process with CALEA, and by extension with RIPCA, puts the Bristol Police Department in what CALEA calls “self-assessment” mode, while they do the work to become re-accredited. “They’re starting from scratch,” said Mr. Contente. The process has been complicated by the fact that an injury to an officer necessitated a reshuffling of responsibilities at the police department. The new accreditation officer has been learning on the job since November, and so there has been a slight delay while that officer gets up to speed.

Change affects insurance rates

One concern, that seems to have caught both the chief and the town administrator by surprise, is that at some point in the last year, the trust that insures local police departments, began tying insurance premiums to accreditation status. Fortunately for Bristol, that change will not take effect until July. Both the chief and the town Administrator long regarded accreditation as voluntary — which it is. But this insurance change puts a dollar figure on what was previously considered just a bragging right.

“Is it voluntary? Now that it’s tied to insurance, I’m not so sure,” said Mr. Contente.

Mr. Contente says he is still gathering information, and he’s met with officials from RIPCA to discuss the way forward. Though he knew that the BPD was stepping back from Gold accreditation, he is still unsure why Chief Canario failed to let him know when that event triggered the loss of state accreditation.

“There was never any intention of being unaccredited, for any length of time,” Mr. Contente said. “I’ve met with the Chief and they are working to get reaccredited as soon as possible.”

“The Bristol Police Department is meeting all the standards,” he said. “The Department serves this town very, very well. This is just unfortunate.”