The Lexington Herald-Leader
RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) _ One is a would-be chemist, another a former actor and stuntman in Hollywood.
Instead of those pursuits, though, Sam Wade and Jason Gray joined 14 other recent college graduates sitting in classrooms and undergoing mental and physical training to become Kentucky sheriff’s deputies and police officers.
They’re part of the sixth class at the Kentucky Police Corps, a federally funded, state-administered program housed at the law enforcement complex at Eastern Kentucky University. The program is now facing a crossroads as to whether it will survive.
Congressional appropriations have been cut in half, and the number of state training centers is about to be cut from more than 20 to three or four, with Kentucky’s vying for one of the remaining spots.
The program works like this: Cadets make a four-year commitment to work on a police force after completing the program. In exchange, they get 1,290 hours of training, a two-week trip to Mexico to teach the Spanish language and culture and up to $15,000 to help cover college costs.
The program provides officers for mid-sized and small departments. Lexington, Louisville and the Kentucky State Police have their own academies.
``It helps the department know that they’ve got somebody for a while, and they’re trained more extensively,’' said Pikeville Police Chief Larry Sanders.
The Police Corps program was created in 1994 with the goal was to help fight crime by increasing the number of officers with an advanced education. The program grew nationally until 2002. Since then, Congress cut its appropriations from $30 million five years ago to about $15 million now. Three states have dropped out of the program because of budget constraints.
Now, states are competing to become one of the three or four regional training centers that survive the consolidation. A small part of that process, said Michael Medaris, a Justice Department policy analyst, is peer assessments, which the Kentucky program faces this week. ``It’s really intense, but we all chose to be here,’' said Brandon Vance of Alexandria, who will work in Covington when he has completed his training. ``I think this should be the standard in law enforcement training, not just the exception.’'