| The noted lack of professionalism within the law enforcement community along with new performance standards has created a need for law enforcement agencies to identify means to improve training programs that satisfy local, state and federal training and readiness requirements. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, growing demographic diversity and a general realization of professional ethics saw the end of the city-centric mission for municipal law enforcement agencies. As law enforcement agencies struggled to change from a reactive performance model to a proactive performance model, the need for better trained law enforcement officer was apparent in the literature. Research highlighted two areas in need of reform: training and leadership.;As a result, reorganization of law enforcement training was touted by researchers, especially for the large law enforcement agencies serving diverse metropolitan areas. Research on law enforcement training has examined the matching of organizational leadership and basic training requirements to the actual roles and responsibilities of contemporary law enforcement officers in the field. Literature has consistently looked at the subject of training from the position that training of law enforcement officers is controlled solely by law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, the focus of the existing research on law enforcement training is missing the element of theoretical and empirical investigation of the impact that community colleges have on law enforcement training. The idea that community colleges have an influence on law enforcement training is significant, especially considering that in California, 19 of the 39 California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certified police academies are operated by community colleges.;The purpose of this research was to examine the impact a community college operated law enforcement academy has on training and continuing development of law enforcement officers. This qualitative study examined an award winning community college operated police academy serving a large metropolitan area in California. This research was expected to take the initial step in broadening the knowledge base of the community college impact on law enforcement training.;This study primarily explored the question: What are the staff and faculty perceptions of the Academy's success indicators; and, can these successes indicators be shared with other training centers? This question was explored qualitatively by conducting a case study of a community college's Police Academy using the organizational framing theory of Bolman and Deal (2008). This theoretical approach to evaluating the program considered how the four frames---structural, human resource, political and symbolic---combined to illustrate the organizational picture of the research site and how that organization impacted law enforcement training. |
