Lessons Learned: A State-Wide Immersion of Blue Courage in Iowa’s Law Enforcement Academies

• In Event: Roundtable: Policing Strategies

Abstract

After the May 2015 Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, building trust and legitimacy has been at the forefront of many academic and community discussions. Specifically, the Report recommended that law enforcement culture should embrace a guardian mindset (President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015, p.1). Around this same time, a group of former law enforcement officers and trainers formed Blue Courage, which “is a way of being, a philosophy that inspires one to embody the noblest of character and unquestioned devotion” (http://bluecourage.com/about-us/, para1.). The Blue Courage curriculum, funded by International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) via U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Program, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), is currently being implemented across the country in individual law enforcement agencies as well as training academies. Progress and lessons learned from the statewide immersion of the Blue Courage curriculum at Iowa’s police training academies will be discussed.

Authors

• Samantha O'Hara, Simpson College

• Denise Leifker, Simpson College