William Hayes | The All State

The APSU Campus Police has recently achieved a high standard in the role of law enforcement, receiving the accreditation, bestowed to them by the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police (TACP).

The Accreditation Award is bestowed to certain precincts of law enforcement who have met or exceeded the set standards in the police force. It is given by the TACP, which consists of a composition of command-level police officers who form the organization that reaches all across the state of Tennessee.

“The TACP has over 160 established standards,” Chief of Police Michael J. Kasitz, said. “To meet with these standards, we had to completely rewrite our policy manual. The items in our policy include our use of force, traffic enforcement, pursuits, complaints against the department, evidence collection and storage, and many others.”

This is not only a reestablishing of the policies of the APSU Campus Police, but also of the attitude that the officers possess in order to enforce them adequately.

“Once we put a policy in place,” Kasitz said, “we have to train our officers in that policy and the correct procedures to follow to ensure compliance with the policy. In many cases, we were already complying with the new policies and procedures, but in some cases, we had to completely change the way we operated.”

The instigation of a new policy requires the reestablishment of new physical enactments that are needed in order to firmly secure the new policies into their orderly potential. It is with proper training that the new becomes the natural for the APSU police personnel, in order to do their job effectively.

However, Kasitz described the reprogramming of this “rigorous” due to all of the reassessments that were demanded by the standards in order to meet them, as well as being evaluated during certain portions of the event by the TACP.

“It was rigorous because we had to re-write the policy manual,” Kasitz said, “ensure our officers and non sworn personnel were properly trained, ensure we had the proper documentation in place to prove compliance, complete a department self-assessment, have external assessors from the TACP conduct an assessment, and complete a review with TACP leadership.”

Through all of the re-working of so many principles of conduct for the Campus Police, it is a task that demands a gradual process.

It is a task that requires not only the leaders of the Campus Police Force but all who serve under the chain of command to rigorously participate. It is as the head does the reevaluation of things, it is the lower rank that executes the revisions.

“This is awarded to the department,” Kasitz said, “not one particular officer.”

APSU Campus Police will be reassessed for accreditation in three years.