Wikipedia:Notability (law enforcement agencies)

The guidance provided here is to assist Wikipedia editors to determine if a law enforcement agency should or should not have its own article in Wikipedia. This guidance applies only to articles about actual agencies, and not subjects pertaining to agencies.

While satisfying these notability guidelines generally indicates that a law enforcement agency warrants an article, a law enforcement agency's failure to do so is not therefore necessarily a criterion for speedy deletion.

This guideline is a tailored version of Notability applied to law enforcement agencies, and should be read in conjunction with that guideline. It reflects the core values of Wikipedia policies, including the following:
 * No original research
 * Reliable sources
 * Verifiability
 * Wikipedia articles must not be vehicles for advertisement
 * Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

Claims of notability must adhere to Wikipedia's policy on Verifiability. It is not enough to simply assert that a law enforcement agency meets a criterion without substantiating that claim with reliable sources.

Criteria
A law enforcement agency is probably notable if:
 * It has or has had a non-trivial impact on the fabric, structure, or social norms of the society it is or was part of. This could be a single major impact for a short time or many minor impacts over a long period of time AND it is reasonably distinguishable by its activities from other law enforcement agencies. This latter clause means that many small local law enforcement agencies might not be notable (in their own right).  For such agencies see Failure to establish notability below.
 * It has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources.
 * Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the law enforcement agency itself. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability.
 * Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability.
 * Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content.
 * Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be verifiable by reliable sources.
 * It or any of its personnel have received formal third party recognition for achievements.

Indicators
Based on the above criteria, a law enforcement agency will probably be notable if it has one or more of the following indicative characteristics:
 * an international agency
 * a multinational agency
 * a national agency
 * a state, province, other or major country sub division agency
 * a distinguishable specialist agency
 * the subject of significant social interest
 * fictionalised either as the primary or secondary subject
 * operated within large geographic areas or within more than base notable populations (relative to surrounding populations at the time)
 * significantly impacted crime, or public order or safety, or key role in a notable historic event; as established by independent sources

Failure to establish notability
This guideline assumes that there is some encyclopedic content available for the law enforcement agency. Directory-only entries (name, address, routine equipment and facility listings, staff member listings, etc.) are not adequate. If a law enforcement agency fails to establish sufficient notability to have its own article, but the law enforcement agency can be confirmed to exist, then the article content should be merged and redirected. This could be done in at least two ways: Failure to establish notability does NOT mean that agency should not be mentioned, referred to, or described in Wikipedia. It means that the agency does NOT warrant an article in its own right.
 * Create a paragraph or section for the law enforcement agency in an article about the law enforcement agency's governing body or parent organisation, or operational area.
 * Create a paragraph or section for the law enforcement agency in an article about the type of law enforcement undertaken by the agency.

Also, if an article fails the criteria for notability at one time, that does NOT mean that it could never be notable and could never have its own article, if an editor is able to find sufficient evidence that a law enforcement agency that was judged to be non-notable in the past is now notable and passes both Notability and this guidline, than editors are encouraged to be Bold in writing an article for the law enforcement agency making sure to cite Reliable Sources in order to establish notability and that it passes Notability and this guidline.

Comparison with other subject area notability
It needs to be noted that this guideline sets a higher standard for notability than currently exists for many subject areas in Wikipedia.

The aim is to encourage and develop quality articles which provide differentiating encyclopedic content, and minimise individual articles which are essentially name and attribute value substituted clones.