Police officers across the country have an impressive assortment of talents. Every department has a subject matter expert in some police related skill area, but many departments fail to take advantage of these experts. If police departments utilized their in-house talent, numerous police training companies would go out of business and police officers would receive more frequent training with minimal costs. If you want to become a trainer at your own department and put together your own training program based on your knowledge and experience, you may face an assortment of obstacles.
The most common excuse for not putting together an in-house training program is the perception that the department will have reduced liability if they use an outside company. For example, many departments use outside companies for defensive tactics training. When an officer and the department gets sued for excessive force over the use of an approved technique, then the company that provided the training takes the hit instead of the department, right? Probably not. Courts do not rule on specific defensive tactics techniques, they rule on whether the force was reasonable or not. They can teach you a technique that can be used to control a suspect, but it is up to the officers to use it in a reasonable manor. Defensive tactics are much like firearms. In some situations, shooting a suspect is reasonable but in other situations it is not. The area of liability for the department is in their Use of Force training, not in their defensive tactics training.
Another barrier to teaching at your own department is your peers. Police officers are highly competitive and might be reluctant to acknowledge your expertise. It may be hard for your friends and co-workers to take you seriously because of your close relationship. It takes a mature and self-confident person to allow a friend to assume an instructor role with them.
So what can you do if you have skills that you want to share, but your department is not interested in taking advantage of this opportunity? Here are a few ideas:
- Teach a course for a neighboring department. Start off teaching for free or very cheap to develop a client list.
- Teach a course for a local police academy or training facility.
- Teach a course for a police organization, like the Fraternal Order of Police, that their members can attend.
- Teach a course at a conference. You may not be compensated at first, but you can gain valuable experience while creating a professional reputation within the industry.
- Start a blog or write guest articles for an established blog or publication.
If you establish yourself in the industry as a knowledgeable instructor, you may finally find yourself accepted as an expert in your department. However, when you are getting paid the big bucks to teach elsewhere, you may no longer be interested in teaching pro bono at work.
People may have a hard time believing that this happens, so feel free to share any personal examples that you have experienced.
A note to all police administrators out there, take an inventory of your in-house experts and utilize them while they are still motivated to do it for straight pay!
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