LPD Training

A tangent presented itself from the last post; LPD training. The poster was asking about consistency in LPD Field Training evaluations (grading new recruits). Although I do not proclaim to be an expert in the field, I have been involved in LPD training on many different levels.

First off, LPD runs it's own basic academy which the State Academy in Grand Island oversees. There are certain basic topics that are covered, but since LPD has it's own academy there is leeway to cover LPD specific topics as well. I personally feel that we have tried to cover way too many topics in the basic academy. As it stands, the academy is 17 weeks long. Topics range from Nebraska Criminal Law to dealing with minority populations to firearms. You name it, it gets covered. After graduation, recruits then are placed in the Field Training Officer Program (FTO). This means that recruits ride with selected veteran officers for the next 6 months or so. The recruits spend approximately one month with an FTO and then move on to another FTO for another month and so on. The idea is that a recruit will see numerous different shifts and areas of town, as well as several different policing styles, based on the FTO's that they have been assigned to.

During the course of the FTO program, recruits are evaluated every day in 31 areas. These evaluations areas range from radio procedure to relationships with citizens to knowledge of laws and department procedure. The grading areas cover pretty much everything that a veteran officer must deal with on a day to day basis. Recruits are graded from 1-7, with 1 being unsatisfactory and 7 being superior. There are anchored behaviors included in the numerical score so that FTO's have a way of measuring each performance. The evaluation criteria are enumerated and well known to both FTO and recruit. Recruit Officers know what is required to achieve an acceptable score in each area. Recruit officers must be CONSISTENTLY acceptable in all areas before being released from the FTO program and allowed to be a solo officer. Generally this occurs after the 3rd or 4th month, but sometimes takes all 6 months of the program for the light to come on and for them to be acceptable. Unfortunately, sometimes the light never comes on. Starting about the 3rd month, there should be a gradual showing of acceptability which resumes until all 31 areas are acceptable.

If a recruit appears to be having problems or not progressing, there are many different avenues that are pursued by the training staff to give the recruit the opportunity to improve. There is remedial training, shifting to a different FTO, extra studying, etc. When a recruit is having a problem, it is not a secret to the recruit. They are aware of the deficiency and the efforts being made to effect that deficiency. The whole goal is to get that recruit up to an acceptable level. We do not try to 'wash' the recruit out. Every available option is explored in order to make sure the recruit has the best chance to make it through the program.

However, at some point a decision has to be made on whether that recruit passes the program or fails the program. To a certain degree I think that LPD has made so many efforts to come to a successful conclusion, that we occasionally lower the bar for the recruit rather than insisting that the recruit rises to our standard. In the end though, there are some recruits who do not pass and they are either dismissed, or they see the writing on the wall and they resign. Most of the time resignation is the option. I have personally had several recruits of mine resign and in the end they have thanked me for the efforts that I made to help them. They leave the department with grace and dignity and have determined that LPD is not for them.

Along those lines I will say this: Being a police officer is not for everyone. Particularly a Lincoln Police Officer. Our standards are high. We do the job differently than most other departments. This has been addressed in the past in the traditionalist vs. generalist officer description. Many of my past recruits are great people, they simply were not cut out for this job. If I were trying for a sales job I think my trainers would quickly come to the conclusion that I am not cut out for that type of work. Nothing more nothing less. And yes, some of the recruits who have not made it through our program have gone on to careers in other departments. I would attribute that to simply being a better fit in that particular organization.

Of course I have also seen recruits that have no business being police officers anywhere. But those are the exception. Generally those people have been weeded out in the testing and application procedure. Occasionally some slip through and that is only identified once the FTO program is begun.

As mentioned in a previous post, FTO's are selected and trained before being assigned a recruit. The issue of consistency is stressed through out the training and the monthly FTO meetings that take place while recruits are in the program. Generally speaking, if a recruit does not make it through the program, FTO evaluation consistency is not the issue. One FTO does not determine the fate of one recruit. Several months of evaluations done by several FTO's are examined by the FTO coordinator to insure that the recruit has had every chance to make it to an acceptable level. Admittedly, there is inconsistency among the styles of the FTO's, but there is NO inconsistency on what performance is acceptable, and what is not.

The LPD training program is difficult. You have to be on your 'A' game to get through the program. Do a few duds make it through occasionally? Yes. But those are very few and very far between. I would suggest that if anyone is interested in seeing what it takes to become an LPD officer, enroll in the citizens academy. The Citizens Academy is a shortened version of the LPD basic academy and it illustrates the areas of study that one must pass through to become a Lincoln Police Officer.