[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

This is a huge point that hasn't been addressed enough. When it takes you longer to get certified in cosmetology (a well used example) there is a problem. Not sure how practical it is to expand that training for every officer as part of the academy. But at worst each department should have a staff, or access to resources that provide ongoing training and require officers to complete X amount before competing their probationary period and so many hours of annual training.

Police mentality has evolved very little since the early 1900's when they were pretty much the final authority and pretty much a gang in many cities. The mindset still exists to varying degrees and needs to be broken down by leadership and Police Unions need a complete overhaul.

Someone looked at this in this thread 4 years ago, with respect to an officer being able to detect signs of autism...

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Found some more info on this. In Georgia, the Police Academy is 408 hours, and 4 hours are spent on "Mental Health, Mental Redardation and Substance Abuse."

(Yes, that is a direct copy/paste from the state public safety web site: 403 Forbidden )

So out of the 408 hours, 4 are spent in the very broad area, including substance. So, what, maybe 30 minutes at most on identifying signs of autism?

Continuing education exists, though I couldn't find any indication that it is required. On the contrary, the couple of articles that I did find made it at least *seem* like it's optional, and none of the classes that I ran across had anything to do with disorders / mental health.