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..... Tips for Training When $$$ is a Problem TRAINING ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET by Wesley Harris Training is absolutely essential in law enforcement but the funds to accomplish that training are not always available. While some courses cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars per officer, training doesn't have to be expensive. With a little planning and hard work, quality training can be accomplished even on a tight budget. A word of warning! The following ideas are not intended to replace an adequate training budget but to provide tips on how to utilize available resources as effectively as possible. Budgetary constraints that limit training generally have not been considered by the courts as a valid defense in cases of failure to provide proper training. **Determine your needs. Before you spend money, you first should determine your training needs. You will spend your funds more effectively by following a plan based on the training needs of your officers. The plan should consider two areas of training. As a foundation, consider the critical areas in which all law enforcement officers require training. Foundation training must occur to reduce liability and provide your officers with basic abilities. Teaching your officers to shoot and drive and write reports may not bring your crime rate down but it has to be done. Pursuit driving, search and seizure law, and use of force have to be taught in all agencies, regardless of their size or the nature of their crime problems. Skill enhancement training serves to improve your effectiveness in serving the community. In conducting a needs assessment, study your crime problem and the skills and abilities of your officers. Needs change as employees come and go or move to new areas of responsibility. For example, your investigators may be among the best at questioning suspects. But just a few personnel changes may make interrogation training a priority. A developing crime problem might need to be addressed with new training initiatives. Computer fraud and financial crimes require training that may have been unnecessary a few years ago. The volume of crimes should not be your only consideration. You may not have many homicides or arsons, but it's a good idea to have someone trained to handle them. Study training opportunities and see how they fit into your plan. If that school to teach countersnipers to rappel off skyscrapers simply does not fit your needs, don't waste your money. Seek training that meets your needs. **Survey all the possibilities. It's difficult to spend your money wisely if you don't know what’s available out there. Get your name on every mailing list possible. While you may think the Traffic Institute at Northwestern University or the Institute of Police Technology and Management in Florida are too far or too expensive for you, remember they also provide regional on-site courses you might be able to afford. But you may not know about them if you aren't on their mailing lists. Alert your dispatchers to watch for teletype messages regarding training courses. Often these notices are simply thrown away and you may miss some outstanding training within driving distance of your department. Read all the ads in the Law Enforcement Trainer, Law and Order, and other publications. These magazines typically list over twenty training courses each month. **Uti1ize interagency sharing. Some types of law enforcement training are prohibitive simply because of equipment costs or lack of facilities. Every department can not afford its own shooting range or F.A.T.S. system. The sharing of facilities, expensive equipment, or specialized instructors may be a financially feasible means of providing quality training to several agencies which alone could not afford it. Sharing training expenses with other agencies may be as simple as splitting gasoline costs for travel. When one of my investigators traveled to an advanced fingerprint course at the FBI Academy a few years ago, she caught a ride with a crime scene technician from another agency. **Arrange for officers who attend outside training courses to share their new knowledge with others. Sending an officer to outside training should benefit your entire department. It just doesn't make sense for officers to return from training and keep everything they learned to themselves. Have officers make presentations at roll call sessions or conduct mini-classes. Useful handouts or notes could be shared with other officers. Administrators and training personnel should be briefed on any new case law or other critical information that the agency needs to consider in developing and revising policies and operating procedures. **Send officers to instructor schools or train-the-trainer seminars. Training employees as instructors may be more cost effective than continually sending officers away for certain types of training. Usually there is little cost difference in attending an instructor course rather than a regular course. It is not necessary for the "training officer" to conduct all the courses within a department. Using a number of officers to teach a variety of subjects provides several benefits. It allows instructors to develop their own areas of expertise. Appointing in-house instructors also gives officers something to strive for and provides a sense of accomplishment through performance of an important task for the agency. An instructor gives you an internal resource that can provide benefits for years to come. **Utilize local resources. Look for people in your community who can provide no-cost training. We have a tendency to be very cliquish in our police training, tending to believe no one outside law enforcement could possibly teach us anything. Health professionals can provide training on stress, AIDS awareness, or how to deal with emotionally disturbed persons. English teachers can help improve your officers’ writing skills. A local prosecutor could teach courtroom testimony or search and seizure law. I have used a doctor to teach nutrition classes specially designed for police officers. While departmental instructors could have provided similar information, the doctor saved us time and money by researching local meal alternatives for officers, preparing her own lesson plan, printing handout materials, and donating her time free of charge. **Call the feds. Regardless of what you think of federal law enforcement agencies, they do place high priority on training. Much of this training is available to state and local officers. Each FBI field office has a Special Agent assigned to training. This agent handles applications for the FBI National Academy, the shorter Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar, and local requests for instructors. Some other federal agencies also assign staff to handle requests for training assistance. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, in conjunction with IACP, offers a free two-day course on crimes by aliens. Several free courses are offered through the National Center for State and Local Law Enforcement Training, a division of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. The Small Town and Rural Training (STAR) Program presents free training programs at selected sites throughout the U.S. on rural crime, community policing, domestic violence, drug enforcement and other topics. **Check affiliated organizations for training opportunities. Most departments belong to a variety of organizations for chiefs, sheriffs, instructors, or investigators. These organizations often provide training for their members for little or no cost. Many will come to your city if you provide the facility and recruit the students. The International Association of Chiefs of Police sponsors the Corporate Training Alliance, formerly known as Operation Bootstrap, in cooperation with several 1arge corporations. Companies such as AT&T and Xerox open their training courses to local law enforcement free of charge. These courses provide training useful to police agencies such as managing people and improving communication skills. The only cost is a small administrative fee charged by the IACP. Thousands of U.S. agencies belong to a Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) Project. The RISS program consists of six regional organizations that share intelligence and coordinate investigative efforts across jurisdictional lines. For example, the Regional Organized Crime Information Center serves fourteen southern states. The Western States Information Network covers the West Coast, Alaska, and Hawaii. The RISS programs provide training for free or assess only a nominal fee. Video tapes and other materials are often available on loan or for free. The National White Collar Crime Center offers training on financial and computer crimes, usually at little or no charge for its member agencies. Membership in the NW3C is free and the training it provides is outstanding. Approximately 75 courses are offered each year by NW3C on Basic Computer Data Recovery, Financial Investigation Skills, Disaster Fraud, and Financial Records Analysis. These courses cost $275.00 for non-members but the training is free to NW3C member agencies. Regional Community Policing Institutes were established across the country with COPS funding to support community-oriented policing endeavors. The Institutes are mandated to provide training to local agencies on COP issues. These courses are usually free and can often be conducted on-site to ease the financial burden on the department. The state chiefs' or sheriffs' association might assist in providing training in your area if you express a need and a willingness to assist in publicity, recruiting students, and providing meeting facilities. **Check out your state training facility loan library. Many states maintain a resource center or library of books and videos, usually within a training academy or state agency. For example, Michigan has a resource center at the State Police Academy. Georgia’s state loan library is located at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center. In Illinois, the resource center is a part of the state training and standards board. These libraries usually keep a catalog of available materials that can be checked out free of charge by agencies within the state. **When considering equipment purchases, determine what training the dealer provides. Whether it's computer software or impact weapons, training your officers to use new equipment is essential. Consider writing on-site training into specifications for bids on large expenditures. Training may not be the primary factor in your purchasing decision, but a manufacturer who provides customized low-cost or free instruction can help you make up your mind. **Try the Internet. Access to the Web is essential for the contemporary police trainer. There are pages upon pages of material on the Internet that can be used in training. Your state's entire criminal code is probably there. News articles, photographs, and other training aids are available by the thousands. A 65-page lesson plan for community policing can be found at www.communitypolicing.org. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's web site allows you to order training materials from a huge on-line catalog (www.nhtsa.dot.gov/). Some departments advertise training opportunities on their home page and allow other departments to participate for little or no cost. Some sites, such as www.officer.com have links to virtually every law enforcement-related page in the U.S. **Enlist the military. The armed forces can provide training in a variety of areas, but especially in counterdrug operations. The National Interagency Counterdrug Institute is a Defense Department funded program operated by the National Guard. It provides training for a nominal registration fee on how to plan and coordinate joint or interagency counterdrug operations and programs. Its drug prevention course teaches officers how to develop and sustain community anti-drug programs Other free training programs operated by the military for civilian law enforcement include the Advanced Law Enforcement Training Center at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO and the Regional Counterdrug Training Academy at Naval Air Station, Meridian, MS. Courses at each of these facilities are free and also include meals and lodging at no cost. The RCTA has an extensive facility and not only provides drug-related courses, it offers its eleven-building Urban Training Complex for agencies who want to do their own training but lack a location for practical exercises. The National Guard in each state has a counterdrug coordinator who can assist in identifying local military resources in areas such as K-9 or surveillance training. **Think creatively. Your SWAT unit or tactical entry team needs realistic training. But actually kicking in doors or smashing windows in a practical scenario may be expensive. Find buildings or houses scheduled for demolition and seek permission to utilize them for training. You will find many property owners and contractors who are cooperative, although some will require you to sign a waiver absolving them of any liability for injuries. When funds are not available, improvise. One training director created a fairly realistic firearms training program, spending less than $20 for slide film processing. Using community volunteers, he photographed a variety of "shoot" and "don’t shoot" scenarios. Officers built a shelter at the pistol range using scrap lumber and tarps obtained free through the Department of Defense excess property program. The slides were projected on the inside of the shelter, while firearms instructors added a level of stress by role-playing the scenarios out of sight of the student. Utilizing live ammunition, the incident provided inexpensive and realistic training. * * * Training is a "pay me now or pay me later" proposition. It can not be an incidental function of management. While sufficient funds are important, planning and ingenuity can help us get the most bang for the buck. Training Sources Cited National Center for State & Local Law Enforcement Training Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Glynco, GA 31524 1-800-74FLETC s&l@fletc.treas.gov www.treas.gov/fletc Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) For AL, AR, FL GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV Regional Organized Crime Information Center 545 Marriott Dr, Suite 850 Nashville, TN 37214-5019 1-800-238-7985 For AK, CA, HI, WA, OR Western States Information Network P O Box 903198 Sacramento, CA 95813-1980 1-800-952-5258 For CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT New England State Police Information Network 124 Grove St, Suite 305 Franklin, MA 02038-3159 1-800-343-5682 For DE, IN, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OH, PA Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Network 140 Terry Drive, Suite 100 Newtown, PA 18940 1-800-345-1322 For IA, IL, KS, MN, MO, ND, NE, SD, WI Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center 1610 E. Sunshine, Suite 100 Springfield, MO 65804-1313 1-800-846-6242 For AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY Rocky Mountain Information Network 2828 N. Central Ave, Suite 1000 Phoenix, AZ 85004-1027 1-800-821-0640 Corporate Training Alliance www.operationbootstrap.org National Highway Traffic Safety Administration www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ Illinois Law Enforcement Media Resource Center www.cail.org/iletsb.media/ 1-800-843-2690 Indiana Law Enforcement Academy Video Library www.state.in.us/ilea/video/index.html (317) 839-5191 Michigan State Police Academy Resource Center http://www.voyager.net/msp/division/academy/enforcem.html Counterdrug Branch Advanced Law Enforcement Training Division Building 971-Parker Hall 1401 Artillery Circle Ft. Leonard Wood, MO 65473 (573) 596-0730 (573) 596-0747 http://hometown.aol.com/cdigroup/index.html Regional Counterdrug Training Academy 219 Fuller Road Meridian, MS 39309-5020 1-877-575-1435 www.RCTA.org National White Collar Crime Center 7401 Beaufont Springs Drive, Suite 300 Richmond, VA 23225-5504 1-800-221-4424 Regional Community Policing Institutes www.communitypolicing.org/links.html
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