Basic Responsibilities

Frank Borelli
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

This morning in the Washington Post newspaper (and online) there was an article about the director of a police academy being dismissed. It seems that some of the academy's records for student officer training were incomplete and, after as much as three chances to retrain student officers and update their files, the records were still incomplete. As a result, some of those student officers had been hired to work for police departments and are now riding desks until the state is satisfied that they've met all the training requirements. This event caused me to begin thinking about Basic Responsibilities because, certainly, the director of that academy didn't perform his. But still... here I ws thinking about the Basic Responsibilities of various people in and around the law enforcement community. As the director of any training facility or program one of your basic responsibilities is to insure that the training is properly documented. Having served as the Training Officer / Commander at two of my previous agencies, I had the "joy" of being audited by our state agency that sets the training requirements for all sworn officers in the state. Both times, I can gladly brag, my records were in excess of what they required and everyone who fell under my umbrella of training responsibility had attended more than double the minimum required. The inspecting officer from the state organization had come expecting to find fault and had gone away after writing a report that said our training exceeded standards and that our documentation was more than complete. What other responsibilities existed there? The Chief of Police had the responsibility of insuring adequate time and money was budgeted / allocated for the training to occur. Additionally, he had the responsibility of insuring the necessary training supplies were provided for in the budget. The officers had the responsibility to attend the training as scheduled; to pay attention and to be diligent in the training process. The instructors had the responsibility of providing the requisite training materials as well as providing motivated instruction completely covering the course material. For those officers who were challenged with successful completion, the instructors had the further responsibility of providing proper remedial training so that the officers COULD successfully complete the training. In the event of an officer still not being able to finish the training satisfactorily, the instructors carried the responsibility of documenting that so that the command staff could take appropriate action regarding the officer's assignments and further required training. If any of the people involved in the process fail to meet their responsibilities then it should become almost immediately obvious to everyone else involved in the process. Each of those involved people have an additional responsibility to keep each other on track and performing. Why? Because if any one of them fails to perform properly then the time and efforts of everyone else involved can be wasted, not to mention the dollars and consumable items involved. That Executive Director who failed to insure proper documentation and record keeping wasted the time of student officers and the budgets of all the involved agencies. I'm glad to see that he has been "retired" and has been replaced by someone more competent. It will be up to "the new guy" to fix the problems and salvage the reputation of that academy.