Defense Department police officers can’t get proper credentials nearly 2 years after Congress required them

The Defense Department has missed a deadline to provide standardized credentials to its law enforcement officers, hampering their ability to guard DOD-owned and -leased buildings, facilities and properties. 

A provision in the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act requires DOD to ensure, within 180 days of the bill’s enactment, that department police officers, both armed forces members and civilian employees, have standardized credentials and that their common access cards identify them as law enforcement officers. 

While the measure was signed into law on Dec. 23, 2022, DOD acknowledged that it is still “working toward full compliance” with the requirement. 

“To ensure the appropriate personnel are credentialed, and to avoid over-credentialing individuals not designated as law enforcement officers (LEOs), we are completing the necessary work to differentiate the law enforcement (LE) and security functions,” said DOD spokesperson Sue Gough in a statement to Government Executive. “In some instances, military service members are in career fields that are assigned to security and LE functions but may not be LEOs. At the same time, we are updating DOD’s LE credentialing standards to align with Justice Department guidelines and other federal LE partners.”

A DOD police officer who spoke to Government Executive said the lack of proper credentials creates issues, particularly when interacting with witnesses or accusers. 

“The only thing I can identify [myself] with right now is the fact that I'm wearing a uniform with a badge,” said the officer, who preferred to be unnamed because of the sensitivity of their job. “We have run into problems where we'll be conducting an investigation with somebody, and they'll shut it down and say, ‘Hey, I'm not going to talk to you because you can't show me proof of your authority.’ We just have to step back and say, ‘okay,’ and can't go any further with the investigation if the individual shuts it down.”

In an email follow-up, the officer said individuals can call their precinct to verify an officer’s identity. At that point, however, a person can “effectively terminate” the questioning. 

Likewise, the officer said DOD police have sometimes been barred from law enforcement trainings because they can’t prove they are law enforcement officers. 

“A lot of them require police officers to show their credentials to sign up for the training, because you have to prove that you're a police officer, so you're not just getting some guy off the street,” the officer said. “We don't even have that ability. So we have to make all these inroads with people to try and get proper training [or] to train with other agencies instead of just being able to say, ‘Here's my credential. I'm a federal law enforcement officer.’” 

Similarly, the officer said that colleagues have regularly run into issues purchasing items they need for their job, such as handcuffs. 

“If you go to purchase a set of handcuffs from a company, they will say, ‘Hey, this is for law enforcement only. You need to show me your credentials so you can purchase these.’ If I don't have a credential to produce, that means I can't buy from that company,” the officer said. 

The officer said by email that, while they don’t have a law enforcement credential, they do have a common access card, but it does not distinguish them from other DOD civilian employees. 

DOD police have contacted their members of Congress, filed grievances as members of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and asked their parent union, the National Association of Government Employees, for guidance, according to the officer. But they haven’t received a substantive response. 

NAGE did not respond to a request for comment.