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In 2001, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) awarded Chief Pennington and his department national accreditation for bringing its policies and procedures up to national standards. National accreditation represents only six police agencies in the State of Louisiana and 15 percent of all police agencies in the United States. None of these positive achievements happened in a vacuum. Business leaders concerned about crime formed the New Orleans Police Foundation. They provided financial resources to implement COMSTAT and underwrote an advertising campaign that recruited hundreds of new officers. Chief Pennington increased the size of the NOPD to 1,700 officers and said the long-range goal should be 2,000 police officers for New Orleans. Both the NOPD and the Police Foundation also gained strength due to support from community groups, including All Congregations Together, which brought into a single organization scores of churches and synagogues from throughout the city. Within the last eight years, metropolitan New Orleans placed first twice or reached the top ten for greatest participation in National Night Out Against Crime. Since 2001, Orleans Parish has hosted over 300 registered Night Out Against Crime block parties. When New Orleans went from worst
to first in the nation's crime statistics, it was a community triumph that reflected the
urgent efforts of an entire coalition that included every segment of the city.
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