Police Officer Standards and Training Council

At a Glance

THOMAS E. FLAHERTY, Executive Director

Established - 1965

Statutory authority – CGS Section 7-294a-aa

Central office - Connecticut Police Academy,

285 Preston Avenue, Meriden, CT 06450

Number of employees - 26

Recurring operating expenses - $2,781, 491

Organizational structure - Office of the Executive Director; Basic Training Division; Field Services Training Division; Management Services Division; Certification Division and Office of State Accreditation.

Mission

The Police Officer Standards and Training Council has a three-fold mission. First, it is committed to providing innovative, credible and responsive high quality basic, advanced and specialized training to Connecticut police officers in an economical manner and in amounts sufficient to enable them to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to serve the public with commitment, empathy and competence.

The Police Officer Standards and Training Council is also committed to adopting and enforcing professional standards for certification and for decertification of Connecticut’s police officers, in a manner consistent with the law, considerate of the regulated community and uncompromising as to basic values, and ethics.

Third, The Police Officer Standards and Training Council is charged with developing, adopting and revising a comprehensive accreditation standards program for local law enforcement units, to grant accreditation to those units that demonstrate their compliance with such standards and to conduct assessments to determine such unit’s compliance with such standards.

Statutory Responsibility

Agency responsibilities are to provide basic police and in-service police training and set entry-level educational, licensing and training standards for all non-state police division police officers in the State of Connecticut; accredit training programs offered to police recruits in police academies; control the certification of police instructors; establish procedures for certified review training; oversee and award credit for certified review training of veteran officers and recertify triennially those who qualify; and encourage the growth of professional development, and continuing education programs for police officers. In addition to town and city police, the agency also regulates, and oversees the training of, police personnel from the four police departments of the Connecticut State Universities, the University of Connecticut, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Environmental Conservation Law Enforcement Unit; and numerous other state agency law enforcement units.

Public Service

The agency, recognizing the difficulty that police agencies are having recruiting and hiring new officers, has greatly expanded guided tours of this facility during business hours to select groups of young people interested in policing and currently involved in some association with law enforcement. These tours have been provided in the last 12 months to students from the University of New Haven Criminal Justice program, members of the West Haven High School Criminal Justice Club, members of the West Hartford Youth Police Academy, students from Torrington High School and the Redding Police Department. The tours permit students to observe the daily routines of Academy life including driver training, our firearms range, driving simulators, physical fitness and academics.

Improvements/Achievements 2007-08

These achievements are described in detail in other parts of this narrative but clearly, the most significant was the awarding of Public Safety Academy Accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

We have also finished a complete revision of our Basic Training Curriculum, a validation and re-design of our exit physical test and a more logical sequencing of courses as part of the curriculum revision and re-design.

We have completed the development of a revised “Academy Exit Agility Test” which involved the testing of 108 police officers representing 58 police agencies. The resulting revised exit test was presented to the Police Officer Standards and Training Council on June 19, 2008, where it was conditionally approved on a trial basis for the class that graduates on September 2, 2008.

The Basic Training Division conducted five recruit training sessions over a 12-month period graduating 226 recruit police officers.

The elective Electronic Defense Weapon training was continued with 117 recruits being trained, tested and certified in its use.

The division participated in the updating of the basic recruit-training curriculum which was part of the requirements to be nationally accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies. The Police Officer Standards and Training Council approved the updated curriculum on May 1, 2008 to go into effect for classes beginning after January 1, 2009.

In addition to in-house basic training, our personnel conducted mandatory driver training for all of the satellite training academies involving approximately 360 students.

Ongoing improvements and equipment have been added to Wilcox Township (our five building training complex built by the students of Wilcox State Technical). All buildings now have been wired for electricity, equipped with furniture, and a new storage shed constructed. Complete road paving with millings was proved by DOT. This completes the fourth year of the development project in a joint effort with the Police Officer Standards and Training Council, Connecticut State Police and Wilcox State Technical School.

Basic Training Curriculum has been updated to reflect changes in the 2008 entry-level police officer job task analysis. As a result of this project, 127 hours were added to the curriculum to bring a new total of 822 hours. New training areas include Immigration Law, Less than Lethal Use of Force, DMV Per Se Hearings, Landlord-Tenant Disputes, Computer Crime Familiarization, Offender Based Tracking Familiarization, Hate and Bias Crime and Physical training.

The Field Services Training Division which provides in-service training sponsored 198 course offerings in which 6,998 police officers were trained in executive development, supervisory and management topics, legal update, criminal and crash investigation, drug enforcement techniques, advanced firearms, and other specialized and technical training programs.

Pursuant of Connecticut Public Act 07-151, the Police Officer Standards and Training Council developed a model policy concerning the acceptance of missing persons reports by law enforcement agencies in the state and such agencies’ response thereto. The model policy, intended to be a resource document, was published and distributed to all state law enforcement agencies.

The agency, utilizing funding from the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, sponsored nine, separate in-service training programs on terrorism-related topics. The simulation-based critical incident training seminars for emergency response dispatchers were both extremely well received and well attended. A new critical incident management initial train-the trainer course will now provide the agency with additional instructors to continue this successful program on both the advanced and recruit levels.

With the assistance of a grant from the Office of Policy and Management, the agency provided training programs on improving both the investigation and prosecution of domestic violence cases. In addition to law enforcement attendees, a significant number of state’s attorneys and advocates benefited from this instruction.

The agency’s expanded website page, the “Career Opportunities in Law Enforcement” link that aids police agencies in their recruiting processes and the interested public to where to seek information to begin a career in law enforcement continues to grow in use. Many other agencies link back to that page as a courtesy to their visitors. Several other pages have been added to the website including a page for qualified candidates seeking positions as a Chief Executive Officer for a law enforcement unit. In 2005, the entire website merged to the CT-DSF Portal Site. The concept of the portal design ensures ease of use and continuity of the agency website. The “Latest News” feature on the homepage allows for important announcements to be displayed in a timely manner. The In-Service Training Division “Training Courses” page is the source for officers to find the latest training classes available to them as offered by POSTC. Affirmative action policies are also posted for public viewing. These include the Affirmative Action Policy Statement, Sexual Harassment Policy, Anti-Harassment Policy, the Drug Free Workplace Policy, Americans with Disabilities Act, Grievance Procedure and HIV/AIDS Policy. Informational publications are posted as well as forms law enforcement officers and departments can conveniently download, complete and return electronically. This convenience decreases the agency’s printing and mailing costs.

The agency’s Certification Division made onsite audits for compliance of police departments completing 17 this year. A new satellite academy was approved to operate this year bringing the total to eight. Five graduated classes this year (Bridgeport, Hartford, Milford, New Britain and Waterbury). Five classes also graduated from the Connecticut Police Academy located in Meriden. During academy operations they were monitored by the Certification Division for overall operation and compliance with the Police Officer Standards and Training Council’s required curriculum, hours to be completed and certification of instructional staff. The agency sets the professional standards and randomly audits compliance of 8,172 currently certified officers employed by 169 agencies as of June 30, 2008.

The Accreditation Division works in two areas: (1) managing the Police Officer Standards and Training Council’s Connecticut State Law Enforcement Accreditation program and (2) compliance to standards of the International Public Safety Training Academy Accreditation program from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.

In the first area the division has completed several projects and training of accreditation managers and assessors. The standardization of process forms has been accomplished with the creation and distribution of electronic forms for agencies and assessors. An electronic accreditation workbook was completed and distributed to managers and assessors. There were nine onsite assessments conducted for accreditation and reaccreditation during the year. To date there are 23 agencies accredited and two agencies which successfully advanced from one tier to the next.

In the second area, during the second half of 2007 the division continued to review, revise and develop academy directives to meet compliance of the Public Safety Training Academy standards. The academy was reviewed by CALEA assessors in December 2007 for Public Safety Training Academy Accreditation. The assessment was successful with only one issue identified, which was quickly resolved. The academy was presented to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies for accreditation at their March 2008 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The Commission awarded accreditation to the academy for a period of three years. The accreditation division continues to monitor compliance to accreditation standards and gathering proofs of compliance to demonstrate for the reaccreditation process in December 2010.

Strategic Planning

The agency's planning function is performed by a Council subcommittee studying the issues and making recommendations to the full Council. That subcommittee's long-term efforts, along with the full Council, at funding a state of the art imaginative and long overdue upgrading and expansion of the Council's Connecticut Police Academy facility in Meriden are coming to fruition. The Governor recommended and the General Assembly approved a $10 million program of new construction and upgrading of the existing facility to meet the law enforcement training challenges of the new millennium.

Comprehensive Municipal Police Training Plan as Required by Sec. 7-294c

Our training plan includes provisions to train approximately 250 municipal police officers per year at our residential Connecticut Police Academy in five annual classes of 50 students each. We also intend to certify, inspect and audit up to eight satellite police academies around the state which supplement our Meriden academy, primarily sponsored by the larger municipal police agencies in this state.

Additionally, our training plan includes providing and or sponsoring in-service training programs to accommodate approximately 8,000 sworn in-service officers in this state to assist them in complying with our POSTC mandated 60 hour review training cycle every three years.

Furthermore, we are currently in the process of revising our entire recruit training curriculum to reflect developments in police training nationwide and to provide current, comprehensive and meaningful training to our students.

The members of the Council are: Chief Anthony J. Salvatore, Sr., Chairperson, Cromwell; Chief Peter A. Agnesi, UConn Health Center; Chief Douglas L. Dortenzio, Wallingford; Chief Louis J. Fusaro, Sr., Norwich; Chief Robert S. Hudd, University of Connecticut; Chief Edmund H. Mosca, Old Saybrook; Chief Harry W. Rilling, Norwalk; Chief Thomas J. Sweeney, Glastonbury; First Selectwoman Laura Francis, Durham; Officer William C. Curwen, Jr., Westport; Dr. Amy K. Donahue, West Hartford; Howard L. Burling, II, Stratford; Kurt P. Cavanaugh, Glastonbury; James N. Tallberg, Esq., Rocky Hill; and Kevin T. Kane, Chief State’s Attorney; John A. Danaher, III, Commissioner, Department of Public Safety and Kimberly Mertz, Special-Agent-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, are ex-officio members.