TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – A new course opens at the Washburn Institute of Technology to offer additional customized training for law enforcement agencies and the instructor is former Topeka Police Chief and City Administrator, Bill Cochran.
Washburn’s new “Critical Issues Impacting Law Enforcement” course will examine past and future critical issues facing officers with more lessons on criminal investigations, recruiting, and more. Five critical issues the course examined on Tuesday include maintaining adequate staffing, changing public sentiment towards policing and traditional policing practices, the ongoing effects of COVID, an increase in the level and threats of violence, and the Domestic agency vulnerabilities not addressed.
“The institute’s primary goal is to provide high-quality, personalized training that agencies can tailor to any need,” said Cochran. “When we talk to smaller agencies, some of the big hurdles they face are budgets and the cost of training and so if you’re an agency with five or six to 10 officers, you really can’t afford to have someone for a long time. period of time for training. So, one of the main goals of this is to be able to equip and develop training that fits their needs and whatever they see their officers need. Having said that, we also cater to the larger agencies, so we’ll have some set curricula – like in March, at the end of March, we’ll launch a “recruitment, recruitment and background investigation” course for law enforcement, then we’ll have a criminal investigation course for officers road traffic and new detectives, and then we’ll do the supervisor course and those are all before the summer, and then when we get ready to do that in July we’ll have a full curriculum and all I’m ready”.
Cochran also wanted to further explain that area law enforcement offers excellent training programs for its officers, but the course is just another option for officers to consider.
“The Topeka Police Department and the Shawnee Co. Sheriff’s Office have robust training programs,” Cochran said. “They are really cool. What it is, it’s just another avenue where they can garner further training or if they see something specific they want.
Another aspect of the courses curriculum is maintaining the well-being of its officers and how to deal with the current struggles of society because Cochran said that by keeping the mental and physical well-being of a good officer healthy, the community will be healthy.
“The biggest ones are the recruitment and recruitment of officers into the profession and then the welfare of the officers as well,” Cochran said. “How officers are dealing with everything that’s happening in the world and how do we keep those officers healthy and safe because if we have good healthy officers, we’ll have good healthy communities.”
Here is the class schedule:
- February 12: 2022 Review & Look Ahead to 2023
- February 28: public perception of lawlessness
- March 8: Recruitment
- March 21: Homeless/unprotected/behavioral
- April 4: Community Trusts
- April 18: Welfare of the officer
There are two sessions for each day. The first class is scheduled from 8:30 to 11:30 and the next class from 1 to 4 pm Each session will be hosted at the Public Safety Institute of the Washburn Tech Business & Industry Center at 5724 SW Huntoon St. and it costs $25. For all six sessions, the registration will be $125.
Cochran also joined 13’s Melissa Brunner in a red couch interview on the new Washburn show, if you want to check it out, click HERE.
