There’s a story unattributed press release (?) on page 3 of the Register about the accreditation of the Whitewater Police Department.
One of the opportunities for a blogger is being able to reply to misleading and distorted press releases. No matter how often municipal leaders scatter junk, there’s a blogger somewhere to clean it up.
I have previously posted showing how accreditation is an empty honor. See, for example, “Whitewater Police Department Re-Accreditation”.
In that post, I noted that
(1) accreditation effort is self-selected,
(2) measuring hundreds of checklist items is trivial,
(3) accreditation evaluators are often favorable representatives of nearby departments,
(4) accreditation ignores sensible standards that serious, unaffiliated institutions and organizations have proposed that directly concern the most important matters in policing.
In the present PR effort from the August 21st Register, there’s no longer a laughable effort to identify a specific, high number of accreditation standards (220, 300, 320, whatever) that our police department’s leadership fantastically and heroically achieved.
Now, that accomplishment is described simply as “over 200.” Over two-hundred is no more serious, of course, but it says something about the confusion of the announcement’s author that he or she thought it was a more reasonable number.
By the way, our small town has an ‘Accreditation Manager?” I knew as much, but imagine being so lacking in sense that you admit your effort is the small-town equivalent of a Japanese cram school.
Forget Accreditation Manager — here’s a title that really means something to a community: Patrol Officer.
For as long as I can remember, I have heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s true, then the accompanying photo is a sad commentary on accreditation.
Has there ever been a more somber, glum, and melancholy awards photograph than the one printed in the Register? This is a submitted, posed photo; I can only imagine how gloomy a candid, spontaneous photograph would be.
Three police leaders, no real smiles, no uniforms (no matter how pricey the uniform allowance), the gentleman on the left with his jacket unbuttoned, Whitewater’s police chief holding a commonplace plaque that one might find in any trophy shop, all looking downcast.
Whitewater, here is your empty honor.
(This was a photo from the formal accreditation presentation, in Eau Claire. Imagine someone having already announced the award, and then thinking that the formal ceremony needed a subsequent, separate announcement. Too funny.)
If there were any group that should stay away from the media, for its best interest, it is our police leadership.
Some of the most sadly embarrassing information on this department comes from its own publications and press releases.
I know that they don’t see it that way, but it’s a case of not knowing what they don’t know.
This is what might happen in any town, if a police leadership lived in a small echo chamber, listening to the congratulatory praise of sycophants. Hearing little or no good advice, and having lived this way for so long, they would have no idea how ridiculous this looks and sounds to anyone outside their narrow cadre.
(The photograph and story were picked up on a local website, confirming my contention that the biggest threat to the Register is an online competitor with a similar editorial perspective. The photograph online is larger and in color – yet otherwise no more impressive.)
If this were truly a meaningful departmental honor, then I have a better suggestion:
Why not take a group-photograph in Whitewater with as many field officers as possible, proudly in uniform, smiling and sharing in the award?
The challenge is that one would have to call those officers, they’d have to answer the phone, and willingly assemble.
A departmental leadership that was truly field-oriented would have had this as a first – and only — instinct. In any event, the accomplishment would have to be a serious, not an empty, one.
Accreditation’s not that accomplishment, and Whitewater – now – is not that place.