FIELD TRAINING AND EVALUATION PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

The Stillwater Police Department (SPD) Field Training and Evaluation Program is a Police Officer selection process that combines pre-field training with objective evaluations to ensure that the standards of a competent solo district Officer are met.

Conventional methods for Police Officer candidate selection have come under sharp attack from the courts as well as other community groups.  In order to satisfy these demands, concentrated examinations of the pre-employment selection process as well as the post-employment probationary performance evaluations were called for.

Historically, law enforcement has responded to internal and external demands for professionalization by raising the standards for entry level Police Officers.  While these raised standards accrued a better qualified police candidate, these new standards simultaneously disqualified a higher number of applicants.  Furthermore, legal challenges by disqualified candidates caused Law Enforcement to question the "validity" of selection processes and procedures.  The end result of this process was the acceptance of the premise that a more stringent selection process must, at the same time, be valid and unbiased.

Currently, the probationary period is part of the selection process.  In the past, however, little use was made of this phase to compensate for any pre-selection errors.   The most common occurrence was the assignment of a recruit to a veteran Police Officers who was not necessarily qualified to be a trainer or an evaluator.  Always a problem was an officer's natural reluctance to negatively evaluate a brother Officer.   A good part of this resistance was based on the training officer identifying with the recruit rather than with the departmental goals and objectives.  Further complicating the situation was the department's reluctance to "go along with" the training officer's recommendation in those rare instances when he felt termination of employment was in order.  This set of circumstances has resulted in various agencies operating with some personnel who are unqualified as Police Officers.

These series of events/problems eventually led to the development of SPD's Field Training and Evaluation (FTE) Program.  Administrative and operational responsibility for the FTE Program is an in-house function of the Patrol Division, under the supervision of the Field Training Commander.

The basic structure of the FTE Program consists of programs for both formal and informal field training, as well as the operational formats for recruit evaluation.   This integration of teaching and evaluation, coupled with a normalization of the Field Training Officer's (FTO) duties and responsibilities, has the net result of placing accountability for the recruit performance in the hands of the FTO.  The institutionalization of the FTE Programs has resulted in, not only the development of a higher number of well-qualified Police Officers, but has also helped to eliminate those recruits ill-suited for Law Enforcement.

The primary objective of the program is to produce a Police Officer who can work in a solo capacity in a safe, skillful, and professional manner.  The program is considered an integral part of the total recruit selection process.  The completion of the Basic Recruit Academy is an intermediate hurdle the recruit must successfully complete prior to entry into the program.

The program is designed to ensure that each recruit attains a high level of skill and professional behavior.  The successful recruit, therefore, will not be obliged to rely on intimidation or other abuses of his/her legal power to enact the responsibilities of a Law Enforcement Officer.  The first weeks of the program focus on the refinement of basic skills learned in the Academy and their application in the actual job situation.   This integral training and evaluation culminates in a four-week intensive evaluation of job performance by the FTO and his/her supervisors.

In addition to the primary objectives specified above, two important benefits of the program include:  the provision of the field performance data from which the predictive validity of entry- level criteria and standards can be updated; and the long-term, overall improvement of field performances and achievement of excellence collectively evidenced by personnel representing the Stillwater Police Department.

FTE  Home | Introduction | Program Structure | Evaluation Process | FTO Selection