CLC police department receives first accreditation

The College of Lake County Police Department, which has grown from a group of retired police officers in the 1960s to a team of 30 fully sworn officers, earned accreditation from a major law enforcement organization this month.

The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators announced that CLC will receive accreditation at its conference in Orlando.

CLC Chief Tom Guenther said his police force faced stiff competition from departments at four-year colleges and universities.

"We were in some good company, up there with very fine educational institutions," Guenther said.

The CLC police are the first from a two-year college with a fully sworn police department to receive initial accreditation.

Guenther said the process took about 2½ years and required the department to adhere to 215 standards set by the association, including evidence collection and storage procedures, policies, personnel training, police vehicles and the department's physical infrastructure.

He said the most important thing about the process was that it made officials carefully consider the way they do things and got them to adopt the best national practices.

"We're now able to provide a higher level of professional law enforcement and security," Guenther said. "It is certainly a comfort for parents sending their young adults here."

CLC board Chairman Richard Anderson said Guenther and his team did a great job to earn the accreditation. Anderson, who has been a board trustee since 1974, said when the college started it was policed mostly by retired former officers and outside security services to patrol the grounds. He said 25 or 30 years ago the college decided to hire only fully sworn officers who could carry guns and be more professional.

"This new level of accreditation shows how professional they are and how far they've come," Anderson said.