Policies & Procedures

The Town of Bennington, its police department, and Select Board, all support the philosophy of community policing and are working together with the community to develop a clearer picture of what that should look like in our town.

To further that effort, the Select Board hired a Community Policing Consultant, Curtiss Reed executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, in May of 2020. That led to a series of public meetings, the creation of a new Town vision and police mission statement, and the creation of a Community Policing Advisory Review Board. That work has resulted in the updating of numerous police policies through a process that included dozens of members of the community in collaboration with the Select Board and Police Department that have now been completed and are available here.

• Body Worn Cameras
• Code of Conduct
• Creating & Maintaining Collaborative Partnerships
• Domestic Violence Investigations
• Duty to Intervene
• Employee Nepotism and Fraternization
• Fair and Impartial Policing
• Investigating & Reporting Hate Crimes
• Officer & Employee Internet Postings / Social Networking
• Responding to Persons Experiencing Mental Health Crisis
• Special Events & Demonstrations
• Traffic Enforcement
• Use of Conducted Electrical Weapons
• Use of Force
• Quality Control, Internal Investigations, and Discipline policy

On January 23, 2023, the Select Board approved a new policy regarding Quality Control, Internal Investigations, and Discipline. The Police Department worked with the Community Policing Advisory Review Board (CPARB) to develop a procedure to implement the policy. The policy is now posted on this page.

What is the difference between a policy and a procedure?
A policy is the idea we want to accomplish. The procedure is the specific details on what will be done to implement the policy.

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