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Police

Policies

This policy manual sets forth the standards, values, and expectations of the Mt. Lebanon Police Department. The policies were created to maintain high levels of professional conduct and are the embodiment of the Department’s priorities for ensuring effective, equitable, safe, and constitutional law enforcement.

The policy manual is intended to provide specific guidance and to serve as a reference to employees of the Mt. Lebanon Police Department.

Police work is unpredictable. There is no all-encompassing formula for dealing with every facet of human behavior or situation that law enforcement encounters on a daily basis. It is the responsibility of each member of the department to comply with the Policy Manual’s rules and provisions.

As an effort in promoting transparency and accountability, the Mt. Lebanon Police Department believes the public should have access to policies that do not compromise tactical and covert operations or the safety of officers and the public. This strategy prevents the revealing of law enforcement tactics that should not and must not be made public for the safety and security of the officers, public safety agencies and the community.

Policy Review:

In October 2020, the Mt. Lebanon Police Department began working with Lexipol, a company of highly regarded national experts that help police departments review and develop policies, with the goal of keeping the public and officers safe. Lexipol’s model combines best practices from around the country with vast knowledge about federal and state requirements to ensure police departments have the most updated information available to guide them in their decision-making. Last year, Lexipol reviewed more than 14,000 pieces of legislation and worked with more than 8,100 public safety agencies.

During our project, a working group including police officers and leadership went through approximately 160 department policies, line by line, to ensure the policy followed best practices and was consistent with how the department should operate. Lexipol also provides the Department with ongoing training to ensure every officer understands each policy, which leads to better decisions and officer accountability.

The result of this work is that the Mt. Lebanon Police Department has an excellent foundation from which to operate.

The Commission has been engaged, involved and informed during the review and development of these policies and the police department has their full support. These policies hold our officers to exceedingly high standards and the Commissioners are thankful for the months of careful work that went into this effort.

Finally, this project will continue to evolve as Lexipol keeps us constantly informed of changes to best practices.

POLICY MANUAL:

Click on each title below to open the document.

Law Enforcement Role and Authority

Organization and Administration

General Operations

Patrol Operations

Traffic Operations

Investigation Operations

Equipment

Support Services

Custody

Personnel

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that some of the links that are contained within these policies are designed for use only by our personnel and will not be visible to the public.

The policy manual is constantly being reviewed and updated as needed to reflect the most current laws, ordinances, federal & state standards, and law enforcement best practices. Additionally, new policy initiatives are being researched, developed, and written to reflect constantly changing nature of policing. The process of changing a policy may result in a delay of the most current version being available online to the public.