WHAT IS ACCREDITATION?

The Hanover Township Police Department achieved accreditation through PLEAC (Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission) in 2013.

The purpose of accreditation is to ensure that our officers are abiding by the best police practices and are following all current laws and case law to provide professional police serviceS to the residents, visitors and transient population within our community.

Being an accredited department is no easy task. Each year, the department must submit an annual report to the Pennsylvania Chief's of Police (PLEAC) Commission reporting compliance or compliance issues with solutions.

There are currently 164 standards, most of which have several sub-standards that the department must meet and prove compliance.

Every three years, three assessors picked by The Pennsylvania Chief's of Police (PLEAC) Commission conduct a two day on-site assessment of our department and all of our policies as well as practices to ensure compliance with the standards.

There are approximately 1100 police departments in the commonwealth and of those, 145 departments  are accredited. The Hanover Township Police Department is one of five accredited police departments in Luzerne County and have been re-accredited four times consecutively since 2013.