The Lancaster City Bureau of Police is a full-service police department that has provided law enforcement to the City of Lancaster since 1865. The department is the largest and only urban law enforcement agency in Lancaster County, serving nearly 60,000 residents. The station is located in the heart of downtown Lancaster, making it an optimal location to dispatch our officers when police services are needed.
To be a professionally responsive and innovative police agency, committed to providing outstanding service and protecting our community.
To enhance the quality of life by respectfully engaging all Lancaster residents and visitors.
We believe community policing is the best way to serve the residents, visitors, neighborhoods, and businesses in the City of Lancaster. This policing philosophy empowers our officers and civilian staff to build trust and form long-lasting relationships with those we serve.
To ensure all our officers have a full understanding and appreciation of the philosophy, we have incorporated community-oriented policing into every part of our Bureau’s work, from our hiring process, to personnel evaluations and required department training.
Fostering mutual trust and open communication between law enforcement and residents, businesses, and neighborhood organizations
Working with the community to identify issues and apply preventative solutions rather than just responding to emergencies.
Aligning policy, structure, management, and personnel to support community-focused crime prevention strategies.
The Lancaster City Bureau of Police is an accredited law enforcement agency with the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission.
The accreditation process is a comprehensive, voluntary program that evaluates law enforcement agencies against established best practices and standards in policing. By achieving this recognition, the Lancaster City Bureau of Police has proven its adherence to the highest standards of law enforcement performance, ethics, and community service.
The Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association introduced the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Program (PLEAC) in July 2001. Since then, over 375 agencies have enrolled and over 200 agencies currently maintain accredited status.
Accreditation is a progressive and time-proven way of helping institutions evaluate and improve their overall performance. The cornerstone of this strategy lies in the promulgation of standards containing a clear statement of professional objectives. Participating administrators then conduct a thorough analysis to determine how existing operations can be adapted to meet these objectives. When the procedures are in place, a team of independent professionals is assigned to verify that all applicable standards have been successfully implemented. The process culminates with a decision by an authoritative body that the institution is worthy of accreditation.
The Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Program was designed and developed by professional law enforcement executives to provide a reasonable and cost effective plan for the professionalization of law enforcement agencies within the Commonwealth. The underlying philosophy of the program is to have a user-friendly undertaking for the departments that will result in a “success” oriented outcome.
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