The University of Wisconsin’s Police Department will start gathering feedback from the campus community as they begin the process of renewing their accreditation.

The University of Wisconsin Police Department will be looking for feedback from community members in February as it looks to achieve accreditation.

In 2009, UWPD signed a contract with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies to undergo a voluntary process to become accredited, Lt. Clark Brunner said. The commission is a credentialing authority with a set of standards that seeks to improve public safety services, according to its website.

As part of the accreditation program, UWPD receives many benefits, and the program provides a way for the department to prove it measures up to the best law enforcement in the nation, Brunner said.

UWPD was last accredited in 2011 and each accreditation cycle lasts for three years, Brunner said. Through the entire cycle, UWPD gathers proof that they were compliant with all standards set by the commission through incident reports and policies, he said.

The commission’s last accreditation report showed UWPD met all mandatory standards and 98.6 percent of the non-mandatory standards, Brunner said.

Now that the cycle is restarting for UWPD, the association will look through the proof of compliance, policies and procedures, Brunner said. The association will also participate in ride-alongs with officers, speak to local community members and UWPD employees, he said.

Community members and UWPD staff will be able to participate at a public information session in February and will also be able to offer their comments over the phone, a UW statement said.

“In a campus law enforcement agency … the university is accredited, all of the different schools are accredited in some different way,” Brunner said. “I think it’s important to also comply to those standards that are set that can prove we’re doing things the right way and prove that we’re following some of the best practices across the nation for law enforcement.”