The Plymouth Township Police Department Has Made Its Policy Manual Public For Transparency

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, PA — Members of the community can now view the Plymouth Township Police Department's official Policy Manual since the agency has made the document public.

"In an effort to be transparent, and to provide better insight into police operations, the Plymouth Township Police Department's Policy Manual is now available online," the department stated in a Facebook post. "These online policies will be periodically updated to reflect any changes that may occur."

The suburban Montgomery County police department's move to publicly release its internal policy procedures seems to have gone over well with community members thus far.

"Thank you for sharing," Raj Mahabir commented on the social media post. "I've never seen a PD be this disclosing about their procedures."

"Thank you Chief John [Myrsiades] and the whole force for being open and transparent," added Bridget Gill. "This is a fantastic way to lead and hopefully others follow suit. Thanks for all you do!"

A quick Internet search shows that other neighboring Montgomery County police departments have similarly released their policies publicly, including Lower Merion Township and Cheltenham Township.

In an era where police accountability is often called into question, some police departments in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, have been more forthcoming about things like use-of-force policies in recent time.

This 2020 article from the Penn Live website, which is the site for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, said that publishing police departmental policies and procedures online is a good thing during times of distrust between the public and the police departments they are served by, although some cities and towns across the commonwealth still choose to hold out and not publish policies publicly, with some even going out of their way not to release policies to the public.

As for Plymouth Township, the department said that it is posting "appropriate policies or sections of policies for the public's review in order to provide basic transparency relating to issues and questions regarding policies."

Anyone interested in learning more about the internal policies of the Plymouth Township Police Department can visit this link.