NCJ Number
175284
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 25 Issue: 7 Dated: July 1998 Pages: 48-52
Date Published
1998
Length
5 pages
Annotation
U.S. law enforcement personnel can broaden their horizons by traveling abroad to training and instruct foreign police departments.
Abstract
More now than ever before, American law enforcement experts are traveling abroad to train and instruct foreign departments and police officers. They might be going overseas to train officers in defensive tactics, bike patrol techniques, and community policing. They might also be going to countries just emerging from oppressive regimes to establish a police force from "scratch." There is no set curriculum for what U.S. law enforcement instructors are teaching overseas. It might be defensive tactics, community policing, investigative techniques, forensics, or police organizational structure. What is taught depends on the needs of the host department or country. There are several agencies that set up international training programs as part of their normal operations. The International Association of Chiefs of Police is one of these, as is the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. There are also training program set up independently. Joe Hess, for example, organizes his own training programs. As a former world champion martial artist and current police trainer, Hess travels around the country and around the world teaching defensive-tactics training programs. The police instructors who travel abroad act as law enforcement ambassadors who are having an impact on the police forces they are assisting, and they are bringing back new ideas that help them address the problems of police agencies at home.