By Melinda Rogers
The Salt Lake Tribune
UTAH — Youths ages 14 to 21 receive police training and learn about careers in law enforcement through a Boy Scouts of America program operated through local law enforcement agencies. Explorer participants help with crowd control and other community policing needs throughout the year.
Andre Caro is ready to interview witnesses, secure crime scenes and master a slew of other tasks that come with being a rookie cop.
But this rookie isn’t enrolled at a police academy. He’s a ninth-grader at Hurricane Middle School and among the first members of a new program aimed at introducing teenagers to law enforcement careers.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office this month launches southern Utah’s first Explorer program. Sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America, but operated through local law enforcement agencies, the program allows youths ages 14 to 21 a front-row view of life as a cop.
Students such as Caro participate in ride-alongs, learn tactics for defusing domestic-violence situations and pitch in on searches for missing children or other community policing needs, said Oscar Garcia, a training coordinator for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Explorers meet twice monthly for two hours at a time. They must maintain a C average to participate in the program, which includes an opportunity to compete against Explorers from California and Arizona to test newly acquired policing skills, Garcia said.
Law enforcement Explorer programs have traditionally been limited to larger cities that have the budget and staffing levels to support them, Garcia said. But now, Washington County is bringing the initiative to one of Utah’s more rural sections.
Garcia, who led an Explorer program in Riverside, Calif., for seven years before relocating to Utah, said the initiative includes lessons on ethics and morals along with technical instruction on performing a traffic stop and other policing skills.
“One of the things we really hammer to the kids are things such as integrity and loyalty and a good work ethic - things a law enforcement professional demonstrates day in or day out,” Garcia said.
While teachers herald the program as a hands-on education on law enforcement outside the classroom, police see Explorers as a chance to recruit and encourage teenagers to steer their career paths in the direction of public safety work.
The Sandy Police Department recruited about a half-dozen permanent members of its police force who began as Explorers, said Officer Bart Webb, who started his career in the program in 1982.
Sandy’s Explorer post, established in 1976, works crowd control at special events and fingerprints children during “kidnapping awareness” campaigns. Sandy Explorers have participated in some more gruesome tasks, too - such as cordoning off a crime scene at a gas station shooting several years ago, Webb said. And the youngsters have cut back on administrative costs for the Sandy Police Department by volunteering with record-keeping and paperwork.
Caro’s legal guardian, Dan Caro, said he hopes the program will teach his 14-year-old nephew what life in the work force is like. Andre Caro has toyed with the idea of choosing law enforcement after he graduates high school and Explorers may help to push him in that direction, Dan Caro said.
“It will help him understand how the law works and will give him more experience on the outside world,” he said.
“If [teenagers] would get out in the real world to see how things work . . . they may be more appreciative of what they have.”