New York State University Police at Binghamton receive DCJS reaccreditation

New York State University Police at Binghamton have been reaccredited by the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) for another five years — a significant accomplishment.

The accreditation process is intensive, taking years to achieve and constant effort to maintain. In fact, it’s harder to maintain accreditation than it is to receive it in the first place, noted University Police Officer Ryan Gennarelli, who did much of the legwork for the reaccreditation process, along with Officer Chris Payne.

“Accreditation is a voluntary program. We take the time to maintain it not because it looks good on paper, but because we really do keep ourselves to the highest standard that the state has set,” he explained.

The department received its first accreditation in 2019. Because police departments in the SUNY system aren’t centralized, each agency is responsible for tackling the accreditation process.

Accreditation signifies that the police agency in question upholds the highest level of professionalism as determined by DCJS, which sets the standards for law enforcement in New York state. To qualify, agencies must follow 111 individual standards: 51 covering administration, 48 covering operations and 12 related to training.

The police department has a written policy pertaining to every one of those standards. Every year during the five-year accreditation period, the department must prove that it has followed these policies — down to the tiniest detail.

To properly handle a domestic incident, for example, officers may be required to follow up to nine different procedures. Gennarelli then reviews the incident afterward, going line by line to make sure that all nine requirements are met and documented correctly. Multiply that by every incident and policy over five years, and it’s a lot of time — and paperwork.

And here’s the tricky part: The standards themselves aren’t static. They get updated, with outdated ones removed and new ones added as situations change. Accreditation requires that police departments not only modernize but stay up to date with the best practices in law enforcement.

“It’s best for the community and the agency to resolve a matter in the best way possible,” Gennarelli said. “Could we have done that without accreditation? Yes, but it’s good to have guidelines; we know that this is the way to find justice for victims and get the proper outcome without missing things.”

The process is time-intensive, but it also reveals the importance of law enforcement’s administrative side. Accountability is why written policies exist — as well as reams of records documenting nearly every detail of an incident. When compiling the data, Gennarelli was able to spot areas where the department could have done better and relay those suggestions, to make sure they do.

All told, Gennarelli submitted more than 5,860 documents — yes, you read that right — during the reaccreditation process.

“When we look at the mission of our police department, it’s to protect the members of this community and maintain the educational environment that’s here,” he said. “We maintain these high standards to make sure that happens every year.”