Police academy layout and courses

There are a number of books on going through a police academy, but it depends mostly on the municipality and what it wants and needs. Some places only require a h.s. diploma or equivalent, some require years of college, some teach a couple of basic courses, some have several intense academic courses. Some places' academies have a six-week timeframe from enrollment to graduation, some have six months. It depends.

In general, your scale seems off. You say it's a metropolis but you have one classroom, etc., and suggest you've got a single teacher. Some places do have classes of 10 recruits or 50 or 100. An NYPD academy class generally has between 1,000-1,500 recruits.

An academy for a large PD is going to have its own building (complex), with lots of classrooms, possibly an entire athletic field including obstacle courses and running tracks. During DH's academy time unarmed combat/martial arts etc. was practiced in the gym, not a dedicated dojo. (Setting up the mats was part of recruit training: that mat rectangle had to be in place and perfect at such-and-such time after the class entered the gym, otherwise push-ups.)

Classes are taught by LEOs (current or retired) with instructor training or, depending on the subject, outside experts, like law, first aid and so on.

What's being taught: police procedure, driving/EVOC, firearms, less-lethal weapons, unarmed combat, police tactics, law, psychology, human relations, investigation, basics of emergency medicine, lots more that I can't think of right now. Training exercises involve pretty much every situation you can think of, from purse-snatching to major terrorist attack.

You could maybe poke around on the websites of PDs that are similar to your own; they often have info about their academies. Also, if you write a lot about police work, this book is very helpful.

All the PDs and FDs in my area use a "public safety institute" that is through one of the local community colleges. It's pretty big (since they train all the recruits for all the area PDs and FDs) and includes a couple of acres that are used for the shooting range and some physical training stuff (like jumping over walls). Students can graduate with an associate's degree in criminal justice, an associate's in fire science, a certificate in police science, or a certificate in fire science. (I would imagine the different departments have different requirements.) As I understand it, the recruits are basically "students" just like any other community college student, except a portion of their classes involves physical training.

They also teach classes that current officers can take for continuing education purposes.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

And while you're at it, consider the laws of your futuristic country. The PDs in Oregon won't hire or train anyone who is under 21 years of age, because no one under that age can enter a bar.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

In addition to the things mentioned above, our PA also has a large room which is divided up into about twenty little stage sets. There's a kitchen, a living room, a bank counter, a kid's bedroom. They even have a jail cell. This is all so cadets can practice coming into a situation and having to assess the surroundings for possible hazards and weapons, while they are dealing with the complainants and the suspects.

Outside the building, they also have an entire house, just a small one set up on blocks, so they can practice forced entry, drug raids, etc. They use paintball guns during those practices--it's very entertaining to watch.

Ours isn't very big. We run a 9 month program for police officers, plus a number of others for wildlife conservation, jail guard, etc. Classes are about 25 or so for each program. There are, I think, 16 instructors. Some are full time, some are part-time, because they are still working for one of the local police forces.

Why not call a PA, explain that you're a writer, and ask if you can verify some facts with them? If you're lucky, you might get a tour.

The squirrel is wise; NYC has an entire offsite compound of buildings for stuff like rappelling, entries, positioning, etc. Same as the FD has basically a small island's worth of buildings to practice stuff on. The bigger the municipality, the more the cops will have to deal with, the more they need to prepare cadets. Also cosigning what someone else said about a dojo not exactly being standard.

Though that all depends on what kind of metropolis your future one is. If it's set in some post-general-crime time, then...

My agency sent me to an academy at a local community college. I went M-F from 8-5 for 5 and a half months. There were 12 people in my class. When it started, I was the only cadet who already had a job, though a few others got hired while in the academy.

The building had three classrooms. One for Fire, one for EMS, and one for Police. We also had an indoor firing range located on campus, along with a PT area with a track and an obstacle course.

We had one full time instructor who was a college employee, but most of our classes were taught by part time instructors who worked full time for neighboring jurisdictions. Only a couple of the agencies in my area run their own academies. The rest use the local colleges. There are several college run academies in the general area.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Yes, the police academy for much of the mid-Willamette Valley (where the majority of us Oregonians live) is in Monmouth. It's connected to WOU (Western Oregon University). You can probably google it.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I teach at several Law Enforcement academies as an ad hoc guest instructor (specific/specialized topics for in-service personnel, generally not rookies). The facilities can be as diverse as one can imagine, from a college campus to a vacant lot - it all depends on the training course and available resources. Agencies without appropriate space(s) will usually contract for specific locations as needed. Training and the quality thereof is taken very seriously as it has a direct impact upon civil liability exposure.

The point is that you can craft your specifics regarding the PD's Training Academy in almost any way you see fit - it'll all work out.
Best of luck & Go for it!

Mark Moore said:

Thanks, everyone! Sounds like I've got quite a bit of leeway here.

I've read a lot of states require a cadet to be hired by a LE agency in order to join an academy. What types of things would they be doing? Just office/clerical work at the station, or would they go into the field with a veteran partner?

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What do you mean by "hired by LE agency"?
I'm not a LE officer but here's my understanding:
1)Whether or not they have to be "hired" depends on the academy. Some academies (such as the one at the community college near my home) treat the academy and academy students like any other college degree/students.
2)I think that by "hired", those academies mean that the student has a promise of being hired by a certain department if/when they complete the academy - not that they're already doing a 40-hour workweek at a department.
3)I suspect that just about EVERY PD would pair their post-academy new hires with a veteran officer for at least a couple of weeks, to help them figure out the ropes.

Mark Moore said:

Well, here's what the Wikipedia article says in the United States section:

"While some states allow open enrollment in police academies, many require cadets to be hired by a police department in order to attend."

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What they mean is: there are two possible ways to attend a police academy.

1) you can, state laws permitting, attend a police academy with open enrollment. You have to pay for that yourself, you are not a sworn LEO after you graduate and you still have to try and get hired by a police department after you've finished the program to become an actual cop. It's supposed to make you a more attractive candidate for hire.

2) you apply to your police department of choice to become a cop and get hired. You have not gone through the academy yet at that point. The first thing this PD will do is send you to their academy. During the academy you are already an employee of that PD, you get a salary from them and you don't have to pay for attending the academy.
Once you pass, you are sworn in as a police officer and go on to field training, patrolling with an FTO (field training officer), an experienced officer with extra training. You don't do any actual police work until after the academy. If you do not pass the academy, your employment is terminated. In most states this is the only way to attend a PA and become a cop.

Mark Moore said:

Oh, question: What kind of work would one be doing at the PD at this point?

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They're attending the academy.

... or one would be assigned some sort of administrative duties (filing, etc...) pending attendance at the academy. An untrained rookie would typically not be assigned any operational (street/patrol) duties until successfully trained and vetted/sworn.

Yes, but not until you are out of the academy and on field training.

At least where I am, that is.

Again this depends - a metropolis, depending on size, is going to have very obvious and self-contained landmarks of that sort. In NYC, it's not necessary to take people on a tour of the multiple hospitals - everyone knows where they are and cops live in the city and your precinct is your precinct. You may not be familiar with it, but no rookie is sent out by his or herself, so the partner would know where like, the stuff is.

Most of the stuff a cop needs to know isn't that sort of stuff - that sort of stuff is known. Where the dealer's house is, which deli has the good sandwiches, which homeless people to check on, etc., that stuff your partner tells you once you're working.

Mark Moore said:

Thanks. Are rookies such as this ever taken on a tour of hospitals, fire stations, jails, etc., just so they'll know where everything is?

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Our rookies are required to live in the city and as such are expected to know this already. FTOs really like to spring those questions on the rookies in the middle of patrol: "Where are we right now and what's the shortest way to get to X?" So you better know your district in and out.

Of course during the academy the PT runs would lead the recruit class all over the city, so maybe that qualifies as a tour.

Mark Moore said:

Thanks. Are rookies such as this ever taken on a tour of hospitals, fire stations, jails, etc., just so they'll know where everything is?

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My brother participated in a program called Police Explorers where they'd go on ride alongs with the officers on duty. They already had some training, a lot of volunteer work in and were certified to help out with stuff like directing traffic in the event of a major emergency where the bulk of the regular force was occupied with more important things.

They also help the regular force with stuff like riot training. One of his favorite memories was getting all the explorers together to pelt the officers with hundreds of tennis balls while they advanced in riot gear.

Then he went to the academy (on the other side of the state so wasn't on location during that time), graduated, and became a deputy sheriff.

The academy I went to was in NJ but it wasn't one specific city's academy. Places like Newark, NJ and possibly Trenton(not sure where else off the top of my head) have their own but for the most part NJ has only a handful of academies that dot the state. Then when a department is hiring, they'll send their recruits to wherever is about to start a class (if they don't already have one academy that they prefer)

My academy was basically set up like a school. Classrooms, cafeteria, gym, weight room, locker rooms, training specifid rooms such as one that looked like an intake room, there was one with a prison cell to practice extractions(for corrections classes), a room with the driving simulator, firearms simulator, then outside there's often a range unless they share one, a track/athletic field, a garage for the academy cars and then the administrative offices.

Some academies have their recruits sleep there so if that was the case there would be barracks and a larger kitchen area.

The person for us who was in charge was the Academy Director although he was more of a police politician. We only saw him like 4 times maybe. I'm not even sure that he was ever a cop. I think he was with the prosecutor's office. The assistant director is who we saw most often and who ran the day to day(he was a retired chief) then each class or group of however many recruits had another staff member in charge of them(a retired Stg. for my class. Corrections had a retired Captain). Then below him was the head drill instructor(another retired Sgt.)

Classes themselves were taught by a multitude of officers. We had 1-2 different officers per day depending on what the class was. Usually it's something that they specialize in. For example we had like 11 classes on report writing and that was taught by a local officer is is known country wide for his articles and classes on report writing. PT was taught by pretty much whatever officer felt like showing up that day(we usually had around 8-12 per day with around 15 showing up for the first 2-3 months... it kind of tapers off towards the end) We also had some civilian instructors who came in occasionally.

Types of classes... tons of stuff....
drug recognition
domestic violence
2c (NJ law)
Title 39 (NJ MV law)
gangs
MV stops
High Risk MV stops
Nighttime MV stops
Spanish for law enforcement
ICS(Incident Command System)
Domestic Terrorism
Active shooters
building searches

There are like 8 million more that of course I can't think of off the top of my head. All NJ police academies last 6 months which is on the high end. We had a few guys go out of state right out of the academy and they were jokingly told they were overqualified. We had one guy who had almost triple the number of hours required by the out of state dpt that hired him.

Exercises varied. Every day we ran. We ran A LOT. Based on everything I've ever heard we ran a hell of a lot more than the rest of the country does. Being in the advanced group I got to run even more than the rest of the class. (that might be something you'd like the know. Based on our initial Physical Fitness test they grouped us based on our running. Beginner, intermediate, advanced. I think we only had 8 for advanced because you needed a 10minute 1.5 mile time(I was 9:30) and this was after all of the other PT test stuff like pushups, situps, pullups, broad jump and agility run.

After the run on Monday Wednesday and Friday every group would merge and we'd do sprints. Then we'd do calisthenics...pushups, situps, pullups, squat thrusts, jumping jacks, etc etc. Sometimes we'd also do circuit training with like 15 different basic exercises.

Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we'd do defensive tactics (DT) That's the wrestling, fighting, handcuffing stuff.

After the PT or DT we would shower, have a 5 minute food break and then go to class until lunch. After lunch it was class again and then every day before going home we would clean the entire academy.

1) you can, state laws permitting, attend a police academy with open enrollment. You have to pay for that yourself, you are not a sworn LEO after you graduate and you still have to try and get hired by a police department after you've finished the program to become an actual cop. It's supposed to make you a more attractive candidate for hire.

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This is what I did. In NJ it is called Alternate Route and is now the standard way to become a cop. It saves the town the 6k that it would cost to train you. Then after graduation I was "picked up" by a dpt.

In N it's still just as hard to get into the Alternate route program though. They only take a limited number of them per class. Currently it can only be 1/2 the number of people hired by departments already. I was one of 25 alt rts and we had over 500 people apply for the program. That's not something you'd see in a department like NYC though which is what you seem to be looking for.