NCJ Number
212667
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 72 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2005 Pages: 26-30
Date Published
October 2005
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article presents lessons learned from the development of a community policing training capacity and describes how these lessons can inform the development of an antiterrorism training capacity.
Abstract
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, changed the focus of American policing to include terrorist prevention and response. Yet there remains a lack of a comprehensive and coherent training capacity that incorporates the range of issues involved in intelligence-led policing. The goal of this article is to show how the lessons learned from the development of a training capacity for community-oriented policing can serve as a model for the development of a homeland security training capacity. The transition to community-oriented policing in the 1990s is likened to the current transition to intelligence-led policing, with its complex policing demands and need for a new training model. In 1994, it became apparent that a new model of police training was needed; one that incorporated contemporary techniques of adult learning into police training. A network of Regional Community Policing Institutes (RCPIs) was created to develop a new tradition of training that would involve a coherent strategy to achieve the vision of community-oriented policing. The development of the training strategy, with an emphasis on its short time frame, is recalled and the lessons learned from the experience are discussed. One of the key strategies that made the RCPI training model successful was its reliance on an ongoing communication and information sharing network. The author recommends that law enforcement agencies adopt a training model similar to the RCPI model in order to facilitate the effective use of intelligence-led policing across the country. Endnotes