Academy preps
offi cers for more
than a career
By Sarah Asch
ITTSFORD — Training police offi cers
for duty in our modern world is
an increasingly complicated task,
according to Rick Gauthier, the executive
director of the Vermont Police Academy.
However, he said he is confi dent that his
academy is up to the task.
He said that addressing the changing social
landscape that offi cers work within has
required an increased emphasis on fair and
impartial policing and cultural competency,
in addition to keeping track of new laws and
regulations that impact offi cers’ jobs.
“We stay on top of the changes but it’s
P
become more complex to train police
offi cers,” he said. “For instance, when I
came through (the Academy) in 1980, it
was an eight-week program, and now it’s a
minimum of 16 weeks.”
Gauthier explained that recruits training
for their Level III certifi cation, which allows
them to serve as full-time offi cers, must
complete anywhere between 16 and 26
weeks, depending on their agency affi liation
and their educational needs. Regardless of
a recruit’s specifi c training course, however,
Gauthier said the academy’s curriculum
is designed to prepare recruits for the
challenges ahead.
“We don’t just train in individual silos and
isolated lessons,” he said. “The stuff they
learn in criminal law is supposed to relate to
what they’re learning in fair and impartial
policing, which is supposed to relate to
what they are learning in their cultural
competency course.”
According to Gauthier, the goal is to make
good policing practice into a “behavioral
muscle memory,” and to instill integrity as a
core value for all the offi cers who graduate
the program.
The Vermont Police Academy has operated
at its Pittsford location since 1971, and
graduates two classes of about 40 recruits
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