Pilot Program to Yield New Class of Officers

A new police academy program beginning this fall at Golden West College will help dramatically change police work by producing a more sensitive, proactive and independent patrol officer, experts said.

Instructors in the Community-Oriented Policing Pilot Program will place a major emphasis on developing skills in crime deterrence, devising plans to tackle neighborhood problems and defusing volatile situations without use of force, authorities said this week.

Police say they hope the new training program--created in part because of changing demographics and budget limitations facing police departments--spreads nationwide in order to change years of traditional instruction methods.

The program, which will begin in October with 45 trainees, will include all of the 40 state-required courses, such as report writing, law, evidence gathering and the use of firearms.

But, the program will also require students to study underlying causes of crime, cultural diversity, problem solving, organizational philosophies and “verbal judo,” a technique designed to help officers deal with confrontational people and tense situations with voice commands, said Hugh Foster, director of the Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center.

Some of the classroom instruction will deal with some subjects rarely discussed in a formal manner, Foster said. For example, the students will study ways to manage fear.

“Law enforcement officers are subject to a great deal of fear they have to handle,” Foster said. “Many times it can be a situation where they are in fear for their lives. To manage fear and emotion in an aggravated arrest situation or in a pursuit, obviously that is stressful and those are things now we talk about proactively.”

For the first time, academy students will be required to go on “ride-alongs,” where they will observe officers using some of the techniques taught in the classroom and then write a report, Foster said.

While some of the techniques to be taught in the classes are already being used by some police departments, it is the first time they will be offered at the academy.

Golden West College, one of three police academies in Orange County, will become the first in the state to offer the program, authorities said. It will extend instruction by 160 hours for a total of more than 900 hours or about 20 weeks, they said.

“I believe it will be the platform for major change in training law enforcement in the state of California,” Tustin Police Chief W. Douglas Franks said. He was one of five county police chiefs who helped design the new curriculum along with Golden West instructors and the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

“The nuts and bolts of training law enforcement officers have not changed much in 25 years,” Franks said. “But requirements and demands have changed, so we have to change. This is the first real change.”

The program will have “a training curriculum primarily geared to proactive policing, rather than reactive,” he said.

“We still train officers to react. Now, we want to train them to be proactive, analytical people in the community,” Franks said of the program, which state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren will unveil during a Friday morning press conference at the campus.

Instructors and county police chiefs, who worked for months to finalize the course work, will review the course and may make changes, Franks said.

“We fully expect many, many changes to be made after the first class and have it be an evolving process.. . . This really is an evolution in education and training, not just a new technique.”

Usually, about half of the graduates from the training center are hired by Orange County agencies. The courses can cost up to $3,000 for each student.

Overall, instructors want the academy studies to convey the message that officers should think for themselves and take a risk, Franks said.

“We’re really telling the police officer we want you to make the decision in the field, make the decision of what they are going to be doing in that community rather than have a lieutenant tell them how to act in that community,” he said.

To those who already are police officers, it may send another message.

“Personally, I think it’s telling us we need to rethink all ways of policing,” Westminster Police Chief James Cook said. “We have new populations to serve now. We have more budget restrictions now. And community-oriented policing lends itself to bringing people from neighborhoods in and seeks cooperation and hopefully we can put an end to some of these problems.”

Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said: “There is nothing wrong with the traditional way of training police officers and an awful lot of what we talk about in community policing is a throwback to the good old days” when officers walked the neighborhood beat.

But, “especially in this day and age when the resources are becoming increasingly strained, we have to work smarter,” said Lowenberg, who also helped shape the new curriculum.