PowerDMS

Recognizing that most member agencies may have limited staff, resources, and time to develop and maintain legally comprehensive policies, the TACP contracted with Daigle Law Group to develop sample policies for our member agencies. The purpose of this initiative is to develop and implement a sample policy program for TACP members that meets Tennessee state law, Tennessee accreditation standards, constitutional policing standards, defendable 42 U.S.C. § 1983 standards and generally accepted police best practices in the industry.

These policies are accessible in Microsoft Word so that agencies may edit to meet their specific needs, i.e. practice and procedures. The highlighted parts of the policies are to draw an agency’s attention to the specific areas that need to be edited for your respective agency. For example “XYZ” department, which would be edited with your agency name. Other examples may relate to specific procedural latitude; agency rank or designee. Policy content referencing state law should not be modified.

IMPORTANT: These are sample policies that require some modification before they are adopted as your own. They are not intended to be “plug and play”. However, they do provide a framework that contain “best practices” that are legally sound.

To login to PowerDMS, click here. If you are prompted for the site key, it is tlea.

• For instructions on how to print and download a policy from PowerDMS, click here. Note an important download instruction: To download a policy to Word, in order to edit the policy, place your cursor over the document name in the upper left hand corner and select download.
• For those agencies who have their own PowerDMS site, click here for instructions on how to download policies into your site.
• For instructions on how to navigate your inbox once in PowerDMS, click here.
• For instructions on how to search for an item in PowerDMS, click here.

For those agencies who do not have their own PowerDMS site; Because of your membership with TACP, your agency is eligible to receive a free PowerDMS "Lite Site." This free site will not have all the functionality of a full PowerDMS site; but it will allow your agency to download and adapt the sample policies as needed for your agency.

If you are interested in getting a Lite Site set up for your agency or need assistance connecting your agency's PowerDMS to the TACP Content Hub, please contact Accreditation Specialist Ken Sircy at ken@tacp.org.

Access to the training videos and sample policies through PowerDMS is authorized for one user from every TACP member agency at no cost.