A U.S. Department of Justice bureau dedicated to community policing will review the Boston Police Department’s human resources section at the department’s request.

“We applaud the Boston Police Department for requesting this review,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer, whose purview at the DOJ includes the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS Office, which will be conducting the audit.

“We know that agencies that are transparent about the work that they do and how they do it increase their ability to build public trust and advance public safety,” he added.

The review by the COPS Office, assisted by the nonprofit National Policing Institute, will be made to “determine whether processes and structures within this area can be adapted to increase operational efficiencies and effectiveness,” according to the DOJ.

The review will be conducted under the COPS Collaborative Reform Initiative, which the agency says is aimed at assisting “law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve in identifying and implementing organizational improvements and reforms through training, consultation, peer-based learning, analysis, and in-depth assessments.” The help is given on a “strictly voluntary basis.”

The Continuum of Technical Assistance Services provided by the Initiative includes five goals: one, to “Build trust between police and the communities they serve”; two, to “Improve fairness, effectiveness and efficiency in agency operations”; three, to “Enhance officer safety and wellness”; four, to “Build agencies’ capacity for organizational learning and self-improvement”; and five, to “Promote community policing practices nationwide.”

A request for additional information sent to the BPD’s chief of communications was not immediately returned Friday. The statement from the DOJ did not include specific information on the review, like when or why it was requested or when it will begin.

The COPS Office describes itself as “the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources.”

The National Policing Institute, formerly known as the National Police Foundation, is a nonprofit that says it provides research and evaluation, training and technical assistance and organizational assessments and after-action review services to police agencies throughout the country.

This is a developing story.