NCJ Number
192753
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 68 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 38-42
Editor(s)
Charles E. Higginbotham
Date Published
November 2001
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article examined how the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) training group developed a new training program to meet the new training mandates resulting from a board of inquiry into the Rampart corruption scandal.
Abstract
As a result of the Rampart corruption scandal, an incident investigated by the LAPD under an internal review process, 20 recommendations were identified to improve training in the areas of ethics, integrity, and job-specific training. In addition, the Department of Justice required the LAPD to enhance training in cultural diversity, duty to report misconduct, accurate report writing, and Fourth Amendment issues. The Los Angeles City Council and the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training mandated that officers had to receive recurrent training on cultural diversity, tactical communications, use-of-force options, and pursuit policy and tactics before a pay raise bonus could be issued. These mandates were considered significant changes from past training practices. In addition, some mandates were under implementation deadlines placing pressure on the working group. The training group opted to develop a new training program to incorporate the mandated changes and enhancements. The first step was in the development process and creating program objectives. The next step was the creation of a curriculum design team to discuss how to meet these mandates. For the evaluation design, the design team created an overall continuing education delivery plan (CEDP) evaluation design. Then, the design team selected problem-based learning (PBL) as the training delivery technique for the CEDP. An 8-day train-the-trainer course was instituted to prepare the training cadre. The CEDP is structured as a 40-hour, 24-month centralized training delivery system. Preliminary assessments of the training are positive and the training content and delivery methods are seen as continuously improving and increasing participant’s knowledge in conducting searches, making arrests, and using force.