GENERAL NOTICE 98-02
To: Chiefs of Police
Training Officers
Resident Troopers
Protective Services
From: T. William Knapp, Executive Director
Date: July 7, 1998
Subject: New Basic Recruit Training Curriculum
The Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee voted in February 1994, to study the Police Officer Training and Standards Council (POSTC), then called the Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC), its policies and procedures for setting training standards, and the Council’s role in providing training to local police. In December of 1994, the Committee published its recommendations, one of which was that the MPTC should develop a process to review the basic training curriculum, including an up-dated job task analysis on the functions of the patrol officer.
In July 1995, the then MPTC contracted with the Systems Design Group, a division of Val Lubans Associates of Harwinton, Connecticut, to conduct a comprehensive job task analysis of the entry-level patrol officer job in the State of Connecticut. The purpose of the study was to develop a data base of validated tasks and other important job-related information which the MPTC could use to carry out its legislative mandate.
At the Police Officer Standards and Training Council’s June 27, 1996 meeting, Mr. Val Lubans of the Systems Design Group presented his completed Job Task Analysis and Basic Training Curriculum. At the meeting, the POSTC Curriculum Committee was charged with the task of reviewing the Systems Design Group’s study for appropriate changes in the Basic Training Program.
The Curriculum Committee and staff representatives of the POST Council’s Connecticut Police Academy, and of the five satellite academies, then developed the Instructional Goals and Performance Objectives for the new curriculum and established appropriate training hours for each subject area. During its deliberations, the Committee took into account previous recruit questionnaires, as well as the comments, criticisms, and concerns voiced by Chiefs of Police, Training Officers and other police personnel in the field.
At its November 6, 1997 meeting, the Police Officer Standards and Training Council voted to adopt the new 640-hour Basic Recruit Curriculum with an implementation date of July 1, 1998. Subsequently, at its June 18, 1998 meeting, the Council amended the adopted curriculum by adding an additional six (6) hour block of instruction entitled "Cultural Awareness and Diversity" for a total of 646 curriculum hours.
The official BLET (Basic Law Enforcement Training) program as of July 1, 1998 is 662 hours plus the pass/fail Field Training Officer (FTO) program consisting of eighty (80) hours. The official program then becomes 742 hours long.
At the Connecticut Police Academy the non/graded Graduation Practices, Helicopter Demonstration and Rules & Regulations add another eighteen (18) hours to the program for a total program consisting of 760 hours. Subtracting the eighty (80) hours of FTO, which is completed at the recruit’s department, leaves 680 hours to be completed at the Academy. When that is divided by an eight (8) hour day, it equates to an eighty-five (85) day program or seventeen (17) weeks. Allowing for holidays and snow days can extend the program to nineteen weeks.