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 - $2,830,549
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, students from
Tunxis Community College, 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 2008-09
These achievements are described in detail in other
parts of this narrative but clearly, the most significant was the maintenance
of Public Safety Academy Accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for
Law Enforcement Agencies which was awarded in 2008.
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 graduated on September 2, 2008.
This test has now been implemented as the Exit Physical Agility
Standard.
The Basic Training Division conducted five
recruit training sessions over a 12-month period graduating 232 recruit police
officers.
The elective Electronic Defense Weapon
training was continued with 134 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 updated curriculum was approved by the
Police Officer Standards and Training Council on May 1, 2008 to go into effect for
classes beginning after January 1, 2009.
Our personnel conducted mandatory driver
training for five POST academy sessions plus all operating satellite academies
and comparative certification candidates. The total number of personnel trained
was approximately 413.
Improvements and upgrading have been ongoing at Wilcox Township, (our five building training complex built by the students of Wilcox State Technical). During the 2008-2009 period, bleachers have been added and positioned to accommodate class size groups to observe training scenarios in real time. Plexiglass window shields have been installed to cover windows and sensitive areas of the buildings to allow for simunitions training in a realistic environment. Building #48 has been redesigned to simulate a Police Substation for processing, detention and community policing. A 20 amp service for each of the five buildings has been installed to allow small heating units for winter training. A 200 amp service has been provided for the crime scene building for heating and air conditioning. This completes the fifth year of this project development in a joint effort with the Police Officer Standards and Training Council, Connecticut State Police and Wilcox State Technical School.
In January of
2009, we initiated a project to develop a content valid curriculum exit test to
replace and modernize the exit exam being used by the Academy. During the process, over 500 scenario based
test questions were received, evaluated and pared down to approximately 300
final questions. Over the course of
several months these questions were used in varying formats in POST and
Satellite Academies for pre and post test evaluations. The resulting test project and results were
presented to the Police Officer Standards and Training Council on 6/18/09 and
the report was accepted and the Council authorized implementation.
The
Field Services Training Division which provides in-service training sponsored 140
course offerings in which 5,017 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.
Six in-service training programs were
funded for Human Trafficking related training.
Training focused on federal and state human trafficking laws and
statutes, conducting investigations, interviewing victims and witnesses,
organized crime involvement, fraudulent identification, business enforcement
strategies, driver’s licenses, immigration documents and travel documents. Topics also included traffic stops, cultural
issues, cross cultural communications and illegal alien populations. A total of 124 Police Officers have been
trained in these areas.
In partnership with the State’s
Departments of Banking and Criminal Justice, POST has been providing a variety
of financial crime investigative training to prepare major case detectives to
pursue complicated white collar crime cases.
POST was tasked by the legislature to write and distribute a model
policy for this state on the topic of “Death Notification”.
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 website, www.ct.gov/post, is a vital source of
information for law enforcement personnel, civilians and the general public. The
webpage “Career Opportunities in Law Enforcement” links visitors to law
enforcement agencies actively recruiting entry level and certified police
officers. This specific site aids police
agencies in their recruiting process as well as aiding the interested public in
how and where to seek information to begin a career in law enforcement. This site continues to grow in use averaging
upwards of 8,000 hits a month. In 2005,
the entire website merged with the CT-DSF Portal Site. The “Latest News” feature on the homepage
allows for important announcements to be displayed in a timely manner. These announcements are beneficial to the
public and law enforcement personnel providing resources for issues such as
domestic violence. The In-Service
Training Division “Training Course” page is the source for officers to find the
latest training classes available to them as offered by POSTC. Officers can apply for a class utilizing the
online applications forms and return them electronically. The Agency’s Affirmative Action policies are
posted for public viewing as is the Sexual Harassment policy, Anti-Harassment
policy, the Drug Free Workplace policy and other policies germane to this
Agency and State employment.
The
POST Certification Division made onsite audits for compliance of police
departments completing 25 this year. Two
Satellite Academies, New Haven and New Britain began preparations for academy
classes to being in the fall of 2009. Five classes also graduated from the
Connecticut Police Academy located in Meriden. The annual lesson plan inspection was completed
in January, 2009 for the POST Police Academy Basic Training Division. Work continues on reviewing and updating the
current POST Instructor qualifications and instructions areas which has been
carried on throughout 2008 and 2009. The agency sets the professional standards
and randomly audits compliance of 8172 currently certified officers employed by
169 agencies as of June 30, 2009.
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) maintaining Public Safety
Training Academy Accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law
Enforcement Agencies, Inc.
In
the first area, to date there are 27 agencies accredited, 8 new agencies have
submitted applications entering the program and there are presently over 30
agencies in self assessment.
In the
second area, 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 has been fulfilled. The ongoing project involving the
strategic implementation of a newly written content valid bank of POST
Certification test items is well along the road to completion.
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 have completed the
revision of 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;