Police Training Inside-Out

• In Event: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Abstract

This presentation focuses on the development and implementation of a police training curriculum modeled after The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. This began with a small group of Pittsburgh police officers taking a course on criminal justice policy with an equal number of fellow students drawn from the population of the local state correctional institution. Later the program was expanded to a police academy cohort of 24 recruits and an equivalent group of men from the prison. Our presentation includes an outline of a program that is almost the antithesis of the traditional paramilitary style of police training. Police Training Inside-Out (PTI-O) does this by partnering with men who have vast experience within the culture of street crime. The strategies are based upon police academy research calling for a training structure that utilizes university connections, experiential learning and critical thinking. Scholars have argued that these educational practices would be significantly more effective than our current system of professional socialization. This project embraces each of these recommendations and uses Inside-Out as a nexus for bringing each of them into police training.

Authors

• Elaine Parsons, Duquesne University

• Norman Conti, Duquesne University