Mississippi Police Reciprocal Certifications 2023-5-9
It is a clone of this request.
| Submitted | May 9, 2023 |
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Communications
From: Sam Stecklow
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Mississippi Public Records Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.
This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock, the Invisible Institute and other news organizations. Big Local News is a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and helps journalists collect, process and analyze public data.
We request any spreadsheets, logs, data, or other similar documents maintained by BLEOST sufficient to show the following information regarding law enforcement officers who receive reciprocal certifications in Mississippi due to their previous certification in other states or as military police officers. Specifically, please provide as many of the following data points as are maintained:
- Unique ID
- Name
- Previous state or military that the officer was previously certified by
- Date of Mississippi certification
If your certification system contains data elements not listed above, please include them in the response, provided they are releasable under the law. On the other hand, we recognize some of the information we are asking for may not be tracked by your system. If that is the case, we are willing to accept as many of the data elements as your agency maintains. If some records are more readily available, we are happy to receive partial information as soon as possible while the remaining request is processed.
In addition to the data elements listed, we request documentation necessary to understand and interpret the data, including but not limited to record layouts, data dictionaries, code sheets, lookup tables, etc.
Our preference is to receive structured data provided in a machine-readable text file, such as delimited or fixed-width formats. We can also handle a variety of other data formats including SQL databases, Excel workbooks and MS Access. If there are additional formats your agency would prefer to provide, please let us know.
We are seeking this information as a news media organization on a matter of public interest concerning the conduct of government. As such, we ask for a waiver of all fees, if allowed under state law. If fees are necessary to reimburse the agency for actual costs, we agree to pay up to $100. If costs exceed that amount, please let us know before fulfilling the request.
Please send clarifications and questions via electronic communication at any time. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this request.
Sam Stecklow
Invisible Institute
From: Mississippi Department of Public Safety
Our office began keeping a spreadsheet for out-of-state and federal officers requesting law enforcement certification in the State of Mississippi in August 2022. Policy changed to allow these officers to take an equivalency examination for certification.
Previous to the policy change Mississippi accepted and certified these officers after they completed a Mississippi Refresher Course. These officers are not listed in a separate spreadsheet.
Respectfully,
R.E. Wentworth
Public Records Administrator
MS Dept. of Public Safety, Legal Dept.
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List of Test Applicants
From: Sam Stecklow
Thank you. Is there a way to get a list of the MS Refresher Course takers? I understand there would likely be officers who took the course for other reasons included.
Thanks
Sam
From: Mississippi Department of Public Safety
I will look into if we maintain that data in a manner other than individual officer’s files.
Respectfully,
R.E. Wentworth
Public Records Administrator
MS Dept. of Public Safety, Legal Dept.
From: Sam Stecklow
Thank you
Sam
From: Mississippi Department of Public Safety
We do not maintain a list of officers that have taken the LEO Refresher Course. In our system, we enter that an officer needs the refresher, but after the refresher is completed, we remove the refresher notice and replace it with the officer’s certificate number. We have no way to track the notices that were placed and removed.
Respectfully,
R.E. Wentworth
Public Records Administrator
MS Dept. of Public Safety, Legal Dept.
From: Sam Stecklow
OK, thank you
Sam