History of CPES

Approximately three and one half years ago the Board of Directors of the International Association for Property and Evidence, Inc. (IAPE) began to examine the feasibility of designing, creating, and implementing a new standard of professional excellence for our members. The result of these discussions and collaborative efforts was the creation of the Certified Property and Evidence (CPES) certification program. This article will review the experience, thus far, with this new, exciting, and evolving program.

Certifications, in general, are granted by professional associations whose membership represent specialties in particular areas. For decades we have all known of certifications such as Certified Public Accounts for the accounting profession, Certified Protection Professionals for the security profession, Certified Teachers for the educational profession, etc. Most certification processes have multiple requirements that must be satisfied before a person would be granted the certification for her/his profession. Common requirements include a training component, a practical work experience component, and some sort of testing component that demonstrates the candidate's know ledge of standards within the profession.

After much discussion, the IAPE Board determined that the requirements for designation of Certified Property and Evidence Specialist (CPES) would require four components:

• The CPES applicant must be an active, i.e. dues paid, member of IAPE

• The applicant must have attended the two day IAPE training course

• A minimum of one year as a full time Property and Evidence Specialist would be required of each applicant. For those who have multiple duties within their agency/department, the Board provided that the fulltime equivalent (FTE) of 2080 hours would satisfy the requirement. The CEO of the department (Sheriff, Chief, Commissioner, etc.) or his/her designee would have to certify that that applicant completed the on-the-job requirement.

• The candidate would then take an online certification test of fifty (50) multiple choice questions that were all based upon the IAPE standards.

Evidence standards. One board member undertook the research of the standards and proposed that IAPE provide additional standards for our area of specialization. After much dialogue and review, the IAPE Board approved the new standards which are now covered in both our two-day training sessions as well as on our Association Website (www.iape.org) . Once the standards were completed, the next step was the creation of a process for assessing the knowledge of these standards by CPES candidates. Using the IAPE Standards, a bank of test questions was created, each question and answer was reviewed and approved by the IAPE board. The review and approval of the questions was a crucial component as it is our Association, i.e. IAPE, that is actually granting the final CPES certification.

The administrative processing, automated online testing program, and approval of the final CPES Certificate format were all resolved by the IAPE Board. An article appeared in The Evidence Log advising our membership of the new initiative by IAPE and explaining the rationale behind creating the CPES designation as well as the reasons why members should consider taking advantage of this new opportunity. With all of the components in place, the Board approved the launching of the program and on August 1,2003 IAPE' s Certified Property and Evidence Certification Program became a reality.

In the first eighteen (18) months of the CPES Program, two hundred seventy three (273) IAPE members applied to become certified. As of February, 2005 almost every state in the United States is represented with at least one CPES designee. Additionally, there are an ever increasing number of IAPE members from Canadian law enforcement agencies who are applying for the CPES certification. While most of our new CPES designees work in police or sheriff s departments, many Crime Laboratory personnel are joining IAPE and seek the CPES designation once they have satisfied each of the requirements. The above number of applicants as well as the cross-section of agencies, departments, and geographical areas has been heart warming for the IAPE Board who has put so much effort into this program.

IAPE has learned that at least one County Human Resources Department has now made it a requirement that applicants for certain positions must have the CPES certification in order to apply. One CPES designee wrote us to tell us that having this certification was crucial to his being considered for a promotion within his agency. Several larger police/sheriff s agencies and/or crime laboratories have had multiple members of their staff become CPES certified. Are these individual events or the beginnings of trends? Your Board believes that as administrators become aware of this new certification, that these events will indeed become trends throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Maintaining CPES Status

As with any certification, Certified Property and Evidence Specialists will have to recertify. IAPE has determined that the period of initial certification will be five (5) years from the day that you are certified. During those five years each CPES must continue their active membership in IAPE to maintain the initial certification, i.e. their IAPE membership dues must be paid each year. Presently, the IAPE Board is determining what types of training CPES designees will have to complete during the five years of their initial certification. Within the next few months, IAPE will be announcing new training opportunities for our membership, i.e. beyond the two day training program. One of the areas being explored is offering self-paced training programs that may be offered as a traditional mailed correspondence-type course, or on a CD-ROM, and/or Web-based training. These courses will be designed to keep the CPES designees updated in our profession and will be required for recertification. The exact recertification training requirements will be announced to all of our membership, but particularly to our CPES' s. The Board will insure that everyone has sufficient time in which they can complete the requirements.

CPES Lapel Pin

At the September, 2004 annual Board meeting, there was a unanimous vote by the Board members to have a unique CPES Pin created. These pins have recently been received and will be forwarded to each of our almost three hundred CPES designees. In the future, as a person receives his/her certification, they will also receive their CPES pin. Wear that pin with great pride and explain just what "CPES" stands for and why you are proud to have achieved this professional status.

Please make sure that your department or agency leadership is aware of your achievement and why you think that it is important that others achieve CPES status. Consider sharing the information on CPES certification with your Human Relations folks in your department, your Town/City/County/ State government as well. Who knows, maybe they will require the possession of CPES status for promotion, higher grade, greater salary increase, etc. Help spread the word that there is a new professional standard and mark of excellence for Property and Evidence Specialists. Let's make the CPES certification something that every Sheriff or Chief wants his/her Property personnel to possess. Working together we can continue to raise the professional bar of excellence.