2009 Virginia Law Enforcement Challenge Awards Announced
June 22, 2010 | VACP
The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police (VACP) on August 9, 2010 will present the 2000 Virginia Law Enforcement Challenge awards for the best traffic safety programs in the state. The awards luncheon was held during the VACP’s 85th Annual Training Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA.
Celebrating its twenty-first year in Virginia, the Law Enforcement Challenge program promotes professionalism in traffic safety enforcement and encourages agencies to share best practices and programs with each other. The awards are based on entries prepared by the participating agencies that highlight their traffic safety activities in the past calendar year.
The Virginia Challenge is held in cooperation with the National Law Enforcement Challenge Awards, presented by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). This year, a record sixty Virginia agencies entered the state and national competitions! Forty-four will receive state awards and nine will receive national awards. The full list of Virginia Challenge winners is available at http://www.smartsafeandsober.org/programs/LEC/2009/winners.php. The National Challenge award winners have been announced by the IACP on their web site at http://www.theiacp.org/awards/NLEC.
For the 2009 Challenge, the VACP decided to hold a separate state judging process for the first time in many years, rather than simply ranking agencies in their state Challenge categories based on their National Challenge scores. We believe that this state-specific judging process provides a more accurate assessment of the traffic safety programs of Virginia agencies because they are judged only against their colleagues in the state and not against agencies from other states with different laws and resources. Competition was very stiff this year due to the record level of participation and the judges were very impressed with the submissions. Four judges spent three long days carefully reviewing the entries and providing feedback to the agencies that they can use when putting together their 2010 submissions. The Virginia Highway Safety Committee certified the results of the judging.
Agencies will be presented with first, second and third place awards in each category at the luncheon in August as well as special awards for outstanding enforcement and education efforts in the areas of occupant protection, impaired driving, speed awareness, child passenger safety, underage alcohol awareness and many more. Additionally, we will announce awards for the best first-time entry, or “Rookie of the Year”; for the most outstanding traffic safety program in Virginia in 2009 regardless of agency size or type, the “Commonwealth Award”; and for the 2009 Traffic Safety Officer of the Year.
The Virginia Law Enforcement Challenge Awards program is supported by a grant from the Virginia Highway Safety Office. Additional information about the Law Enforcement Challenge program can be found online at http://www.smartsafeandsober.org/programs/LEC .
FULL NEWS RELEASE & LIST OF WINNERS (PDF)
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