In-Service Training

Send us Fan Mail About twenty years ago I was sitting in an administrative meeting at my police department. The chief had made a promise to the city council that we were going to increase our in-service training. It sounded great. Everybody around the table agreed that more training was important. Then reality hit. We didn't have enough officers to cover the street if people went to training. We couldn't pull officers off shift because there was nobody to replace them. On top of that, the city wasn't giving us any additional money, so whatever we came up with had to be done in-house and basically for free. The room got quiet while everyone tried to solve the impossible problem. Finally, one administrator spoke up and said, "Why don't we make a bunch of PowerPoint presentations about department policies? The sergeants can read them during roll call. We'll count each one as thirty minutes of in-service training, and at the end of the year we'll be able to tell the city council we met our goal." I remember sitting there thinking, Yeah...but nobody is actually going to learn anything And I wasn’t the only one. I could see it on everyone’s faces. Before I could say anything, someone else answered the thought that was on everyone’s mind. "Who cares? We just have to make the city happy." That sentence has stuck with me ever since. Not because it was malicious. It wasn't. It was the product of a system that cared more about checking a box than building better police officers. And unfortunately, that's how a lot of in-service training in American law enforcement still works today. It’s not about protecting the officers. It’s not about protecting the community. It’s about protecting the government. Because all they have to do is say they tried, but they don’t have to try hard. And the reality is they don’t try at all.