Times Observer photo by Ann-Marie Gariepy Joe Sproveri, Warren police chief, Chief John Adams, retired, coordinator of the Chiefs of Police Association Accreditation Program, Officer Kyle Gray of the Warren Police Department and Sgt. Jason Bees of the Warren Police Department are pictured accepting a plaque denoting the department’s Premier Status accreditation.

The Warren Police Department has reached a higher level of accreditation from the state Chiefs of Police Association Accreditation Program.

City police have reached Premier status in the program, a level less than 5% of police departments in Pennsylvania reach. Retired Police Chief John Adams, coordinator of the Chiefs of Police Association Accreditation Program, presented the department with a plaque noting the Warren Police Department’s achievement and spoke about the program during this week’s Warren City Council meeting.

“We are confident at the city and the staff level knowing that we have one of the most professional and capable police forces in the entire state of Pennsylvania and our residents couldn’t be prouder of the work that you do,” said Mayor Dave Wortman. “I see it on a daily basis – your interactions with anybody and everybody within the city and even, frankly, outside of the city. And we’re always proud of those interactions. And again, time spent to hold yourself to that very high standard is very valuable and very well spent. So, again, congratulations.”

The Warren Police Department enrolled in the accreditation program in 2007 and reached accreditation by 2010. Accreditation means the department met the 139 Standards for Customer Service set forth by the program, with those 139 standards broken down further into 370 best practices for compliance. Adams said the Warren Police Department reviewed the best practices for compliance, compared them to existing department policy and tweaked the city’s policies to comply with the accreditation standard. Once the standards are written in a way that comply with the Chiefs of Police Association Accreditation Program, the association makes sure there is proof that officers are actually following the policies.

“As you all know, you can have the best written policy manual, if it’s sitting on the shelf and nobody’s following the policy, what good is doing it?” Adams said. “For every one of those 370 best practices, there has to be two proofs of compliance for each 12-month period. That means that they have to prove a minimum of two times that their staff are actually complying with that standard. So they became accredited in 2010. Big sigh of relief, but not really because the work just continues. Every three years since 2010, we sent a new team of assessments in to put them through the entire process again. So it’s never ending.”

Five uninterrupted cycles of clean assessments grants a police department premier status – which the Warren Police Department has now achieved. Adams said there are now 192 accredited police departments in Pennsylvania, with 40 granted premier status. Joe Sproveri, Warren police chief, credited the work of department staff over the past three years.

“It’s a ton of work,” Sproveri said. “I recently served as our department’s AM before I moved on to become chief. I without hesitation passed the torch down. Sergeant Bees took it over. Sgt. Gray is very hands on with it and they did a great job. They really understand it and have a grasp. It’s kind of a hard program to summarize. We’re a better department and our citizens, you know, we’re seeing better service because of it. So, thank you.”