SEMO Law Enforcement Academy an asset to community

I am so pleased that Jeff Long highlighted the Southeast Missouri State University Law Enforcement Academy. This resource is a valuable asset to the community, and especially with Carl Kinnison as the director and Dr. Michael Brown as its founder.

When I moved to Cape Girardeau, one of the first community leaders I met was Police Chief Kinnison. Subsequently, I initiated a community advisory council for the College of Health and Human Services at SEMO. Because of his practice and history of effective community policing, Chief Kinnison was invited to join the council to represent the Department of Criminal Justice. After his retirement as Cape Girardeau's police chief, he continued his commitment to social justice through university teaching and leadership of the regional Law Enforcement Academy.

I am hopeful that the academy enrollment will increase. The education and training received at the academy contribute to a safe community and quality professionals. I strongly believe that officers who have successfully completed the academy here are in a better position to join with residents in keeping the community safe, in comparison to persons without academy training. Unfortunately, there may be persons who could become excellent peace keepers but are without the financial means to enroll in an academy program. If no financial assistance programs exist to pay tuition for academy recruits, an initiative could be explored to attract potentially excellent officers.

When I presented sensitivity training to police academy cadets, I believed there were cadets with a purpose that would uniquely qualify them for community policing positions. I asked each student to write a response on an index card, without writing his/her name on the card. The question was, "Why do you want to become a police officer?" There were varying responses, as you might imagine. I was especially excited when I read the following response:

I would like to be a police officer because I like to fellowship with people and try to keep people honest. It's not about beating up people or being mean to people. Maybe you could be at the right place at the right moment to change a person's life, to keep them from doing something wrong. I want to try to help people and keep people safe.

I used the term peace keepers based on a conversation I had with a police administrator in Illinois. He said, "When I entered policing, we were socialized to be peace keepers, which had better outcomes than law enforcers." I thought that was an interesting distinction. His description of peace keepers appears to be aligned with the effective strategies of community policing, in which the community and police officers work together on a foundation of established mutual trust and respect.

Dr. Loretta P. Prater is the retired dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Southeast Missouri State University.