CANTON, Ohio — The Stark County Sheriff's Office is among multiple agencies at the forefront of a new state accreditation program that aims to standardize law enforcement policies across Ohio, and Gov. Mike DeWine's office says it's making progress.
There are more than 900 law enforcement agencies in Ohio, each with its own set of policies. The Stark County Sheriff's Office has more than 300 of its own policies on the books that its officers need to follow, and the department is now working with the state to help develop a set of guidelines for all agencies across the state to implement.
"Why is that important to the Stark county Sheriff's Office? It's important to the Stark County Sheriff's Office because our folks need to understand the why — why we do what we do," Sheriff George Maier said in a press conference Thursday.
Maier says his department is among the first to be accredited with the Ohio Collaborative Law Enforcement Accreditation Program, meaning it has met the standards for the state's 31 policies of professional excellence. The customs include use of force, crisis intervention, community engagement, and unbiased policing.
"Accreditation is a really tough standard to meet, but what we're doing is making it by the law enforcement agencies, for the law enforcement agencies, and for the communities," Nicole Dehner, executive director of Ohio's Office of Criminal Justice Services, noted.
The Stark County Sheriff's Office is one of 10 agencies participating in the pilot program, with other departments including the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office and the Ohio State Highway Patrol. It falls on participating agencies to train and retrain its deputies on the policies that are regularly updated to reflect new court cases and best practices around the country. The agencies are also invited to provide their own feedback on the policies.
"Too many times, we hear of agencies that do things improperly, violate people's civil rights, maybe don't do things correctly, and things can go bad," Maier said. "This is an effort to get us all on the same page so that we're all doing things the right way, the correct way, the appropriate way.”
The state wants to roll out the program to all agencies next spring. The program is voluntary and, unlike similar state programs across the country, it is free for agencies to participate.