Title
Recommendation to Authorize the Chief of Police to Update Section 1030 of the Existing Alameda Police Department Policy Manual Entitled "Commendations and Awards" to Conform to Operational Changes. (Police 10031100)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Alameda Police Department (PD) contracts with Lexipol for the generation, retention, updating, and publishing of our policy manual. Part of the contract includes periodic review and revision of the policy manual to reflect current best practices, emerging case law, and new legislative changes/mandates. The Department also has the ability to modify policies when operational changes occur or when new internal procedures are identified.
BACKGROUND
Before Lexipol, PD operated on a set of General Orders that functioned as a policy manual for the Police Department. Under the General Orders concept, the policy manual was a paper document. PD and the City Attorney's Office were required to monitor evolving best practices, new case law, and changes in legislation. Those new practices and laws would then have to be distilled into a new or modified General Order, which would then be printed and disseminated for training at the PD. This was a time-consuming and cumbersome process that required a tremendous amount of City of Alameda (City) resources.
Approximately ten years ago, the PD entered into an agreement with Lexipol to create, maintain, update and publish a policy manual. Lexipol is a risk management company that specializes in the creation of electronic public safety policy manuals. It currently serves approximately 8,100 public safety agencies/municipalities. Last year, Lexipol reviewed about 9,000 legislative and regulatory changes to ensure the policy manuals it manages to stay as current and comprehensive as possible. In addition, the pooling of resources caused by having so many public agencies obtaining their policy manuals from a single source and u...
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