There are two critical components of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) mission that work together to promote excellence in Oregon’s public safety professions — delivering quality training and upholding professional standards. DPSST training helps public safety providers protect their communities. Upholding professional standards helps safeguard the integrity of Oregon’s criminal justice system by ensuring that front-line providers of public safety services meet and maintain all established training, physical, emotional, intellectual and moral fitness standards.
In addition to statutes set by the Oregon State Legislature, DPSST’s overall mission is guided by the 24-member Board on Public Safety Standards and Training, and its five discipline-specific Policy Committees. The Board and Committees are integrally involved in establishing the certification and training standards for Oregon’s 43,000 providers of public and private safety services. The Board and Committees also review discretionary cases involving violations of the established moral fitness standards by Oregon law enforcement officers. The Board and Committees meet publicly on a quarterly basis. Membership rosters, and meeting agendas, minutes and schedules can be found here: https://www.oregon.gov/dpsst/BD/Pages/default.aspx
DPSST trains and certifies more than 5,600 full-time police officers in Oregon who work for city, county, state, tribal and university police departments, as well as approximately 4,100 corrections officers, 1,000 9-1-1 dispatchers, 600 parole & probation officers and 75 liquor/marijuana regulatory specialists. DPSST also regulates our State’s fire service professionals, private security providers, private investigators and polygraph examiners.
In August, 2020, DPSST published an online database of final DPSST Professional Standards actions taken against Oregon’s public safety providers. This database was created to comply with HB 4207 which passed during a special session of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. The database included the names of all public safety officers and dispatchers who have been the subject of a DPSST certification action, their employing agency (when applicable), and a link to the DPSST investigation and Final Order occurring on or after June 30, 2020 (The effective date of HB 4207).
Effective immediately DPSST has expanded the information available through this database to include a list of all open professional standards cases, as well as the disposition of each case as it works through the professional standards review process. The database will also include links to all DPSST-created reports used for and relating to the decision making involved in each case.
The updated database, along with a list of professional standards actions occurring before the passage of HB 4207 can be found on-line at https://www.oregon.gov/dpsst/cj/pages/cases.aspx (Please note, DPSST is actively adding case documentation for cases that are currently open or recently closed. We expect that project to be completed by February 1st.)
DPSST Professional Standards Director Linsay Hale said “The DPSST, along with our public safety partners, our elected officials and the citizens of our State, takes the accountability of our public safety providers seriously. The transparency of the processes established to safeguard that accountability is key to ensuring we build, re-build and maintain legitimacy and trust in our systems. Making key information relating to the enforcement of the standards affecting our State’s law enforcement officers publically available is one more step towards ensuring all interested parties are aware of the decisions being made by our agency and its governing Board, and more importantly how and why those decisions are made.”