Human relation skills are vital for in the law enforcement field, helping you interact with citizens, criminals, victims, informants, and people in crisis. The Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy will offer several such courses this summer. Here’s a sampling.
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Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy, June 12, Richfield: This course was developed through the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy’s partnership with the Education and Training Division of the Chicago Police Department, which devised the original curriculum with assistance from Yale Law School and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Procedural justice is the process police officers use to treat citizens fairly and with proper respect. Legitimacy refers to a citizen feeling that a police officer should be deferred to, complied with, and trusted. The goal of procedural justice and legitimacy is to strengthen a department’s relationship with the community and ultimately improve officer safety and efficiency. It’s as basic as the old adage: It is not what you say, but how you say it. It’s not just about what you do, but how you are doing it. Procedural justice and legitimacy in law enforcement is not just a strategy, but a movement. By fostering an environment in which procedural justice principles become standard practice, a department can create an organizational culture that fosters a true partnership with the public and leads to safer work environments. This course is free.
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Crime Victims’ Rights and Responsibilities, June 19, London: This course provides information on the rights and responsibilities of crime victims and law enforcement’s responsibility to inform of these rights. You learn typical victim reactions and how to work with victim advocates. The class also touches on the Victim Information Notification System (VINE), which allows victims and law enforcement to track offenders’ movement through the correctional system, and ways to encourage victims to be effective partners in the criminal justice system. The course is free.
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Interacting with and De-Escalating Special Needs Populations, Aug. 14, London: This course, for officers who may encounter people with special needs in the course of their duties, covers recognizing observable characteristics of individuals in crisis and basic de-escalation techniques to respond to those situations. The course is free.
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Reid Technique for Interview and Interrogation, Aug. 18-20, Richfield: This program sharpens observation skills and teaches how to use a suspect’s behavior to reveal when he or she is ready to confess. Topics include identifying the five facial expressions that indicate the emotional state of the suspect and developing a strategic game plan for every interview/interrogation based on evaluating the suspect using case facts. Other topics include interview and interrogation preparation, behavior symptoms, Reid Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI), Nine Steps of Interrogation, and more. The cost of this course is $415.
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Human Trafficking: Basic Overview, Aug. 21, London: Human trafficking is one of vilest crimes in the world today, and it’s happening right under our noses. Not only is human trafficking international in scope, it also encompasses a multitude of felonies. Countless lives have been ruined through this crime, and it isn’t stopping; in fact, authorities say it’s the world’s fastest-growing crime. This class examines human trafficking’s causes and effects, both nationally and internationally, and explore the crime from the victims’ and perpetrators’ perspectives. The course, which is free, satisfies state-mandated training on this topic.
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Cultivating Confidential Informants, Sept. 30, 2014, London: This course informs law enforcement investigators and professionals how to cultivate and work with confidential informants to further criminal or administrative investigations. The cost is $65.
To register for these or other classes, visit the
OPOTA course catalog.