Hickory police have received state accreditation.
The department's account is a Facebook post published Friday. It says the Hickory Police Department "was recently awarded accreditation with the North Carolina Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program (NCPSCAP), becoming the first agency to earn this accomplishment."
Two Dates, One Program
The older date sits on the justice department's law-enforcement accreditation page. An entry there reads: "November 4, 2020 - The Wilmington Police Department achieved re-accreditation with NCLEA. The Hickory Police Department became the first agency accredited with the North Carolina Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program (NCPSCAP) as well as NCLEA accredited."
The city’s 2025 record concerns a law-enforcement accreditation award.
The Certificate In Raleigh
The communications program is not the law-enforcement credential the city has already dated. Hickory's 2025 year in review says that on Aug. 15, the department was awarded its North Carolina Law Enforcement Accreditation certificate in front of the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission in Raleigh.
The city had put an assessment on the public calendar before that ceremony. A notice said Hickory police would undergo an NCLEA assessment on June 18, 2025. The notice covered law-enforcement accreditation, not NCPSCAP.
Wilmington's line in the 2020 entry is explicitly a re-accreditation. Hickory's Aug. 15 record is an award before the commission. One is a 2020 note. The other is a 2025 ceremony. They are not the same event.
What The Review Moved
The law-enforcement process has a reported footprint beyond a ceremony. The News & Observer reported that accreditation led to changes at Hickory police, including reorganizing and restricting access to the evidence room.
The paper also described the state pipeline around that credential. The new pipeline opened in 2023, it reported, and typically takes six months to two years. Agencies file annual reports and seek recertification every three years. At the time of the article, 11 agencies had earned law-enforcement accreditation and about 70 more were enrolled.
That count is NCLEA, not NCPSCAP, and it is the News & Observer's figure from the time of its article, not a total for this week. Annual reports and a three-year recertification are the part of that law-enforcement program that continues after a certificate is in hand.
Communications Accreditation
CALEA says its Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program gives a communications center, or the communications unit of a public safety agency, a process to review and internally assess its operations and procedures.
UNC Charlotte has a completed example of CALEA's communications review. In August 2022, the university's Division of Business Affairs said the communications center of the campus police department had been awarded CALEA Communications Accreditation. The four-year model called for annual web-based assessments and a site-based review in 2025. That 2022 account set a schedule. It did not report how the 2025 review came out.
The city dates the NCLEA certificate to Aug. 15, 2025, in Raleigh.
