Our Commitment to Public Safety Policy Transparency

Lexipol policies are extensively researched and reflect the latest state and federal laws. They’re designed to protect all community members equally while providing transparent and proven response recommendations, the highest standards for conduct and clear direction for those on the front lines.

At the same time, our policies are not static; they are intended to be customized to fit the unique needs of each customer and community. We encourage each agency to review all policies before implementing them and to engage relevant community stakeholders in that review process. Our online platform is built to support this process, including:

• Allowing agencies to provide access to the system for anyone they want to be involved in the policy review process
• Providing workflow tools to support community stakeholder review and comment on policies
• Using intuitive editing tools to make it easy for agency leaders to customize policies to reflect the needs of their specific community
• Providing the option for agencies to create a PDF of their policy manual (or individual policies) for posting on their public website
• Enabling agencies to customize policies and clearly stating that the agency is the policymaker and owns their policy content, even after they are no longer a Lexipol customer

In addition, our Implementation Specialists, who average 35 years of experience in public safety, provide start-to-finish, comprehensive policy adoption assistance using policy review and approval methods proven to meet community needs while also keeping the project on time and on budget.

By helping our customers have access to the latest information, we save them hours of research, writing and reviewing, and allow them to focus on the needs of those they pledged to serve. This is particularly important in the realm of law enforcement since nearly half (48%) of police departments in the U.S. are staffed by 10 sworn officers or less.

Our goal is for community members to feel confident the public safety departments that serve them are up to date with the latest insights, training and policies to keep their communities safe and secure.

Our policy content derives from three main areas:

• Experience developing policies with thousands of agencies across the country, as well as internal and external legal and public safety experts
• Public safety and local government evolving best practices, customer inquiries, and research from industry and advocacy groups
• Legal resources, including court cases, state and federal legislation, and regulations

Our policy development process involves five steps:

1. Analysis: We view policy content through a variety of lenses. First and foremost, our policies put the preservation of life and minimization of harm as the top priority in everything we do. Next, we consider applicable laws, ensuring our policy guidance aligns with federal and state statutes and upholds the rights of agency personnel and community members. Finally, we consider operational and behavioral guidance needed to maximize the effectiveness of the organization and reduce inefficiencies and waste.
2. Development: If a new policy or policy update is warranted, our internal legal and content experts draft the policy text, working with a team of professional editors who copy edit, fact check and proofread the content. This process often involves several rounds of review and modification.
3. Testing: After developing new content, we test-drive it, using input from internal and external subject matter experts to ensure we’re considering all sides of the issue and to further refine the content.
4. Release: Once the content is finalized, it is provided to our customer agencies with a corresponding Guide Sheet that helps explain the origin of the policy and why we made the development choices we did.
5. Maintenance: Our experts monitor legislation at the state and federal levels, reviewing thousands of pieces of legislation each year and analyzing them for potential policy impact. When a policy update is needed, we author the recommended changes and deliver them to our customers through our online platform. The changes are shown clearly in mark-up form, so there’s no confusion about what’s changing, and the update is accompanied with Release Notes, so there’s no guessing about why the changes are being made. Customers can accept, reject or customize each policy update or section of an update, then issue the update to their personnel with just a few clicks.

References

1. Local Police Departments, 2016: Personnel. (1/27/21) U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Accessed 5/30/22 via https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd16p.pdf.