Notification Of Medical Section Policies And Restrictions: Fill & Download for Free

Well, so many people have made an answer to this question.Well, this matter is currently a key political topic in Kerala and definitely has more political dimensions than key disaster management/relief management issue.I see lot of responses of Non Malayalees/Non Keralites here is focused on a National policy formulated by UPA Government under Dr.Manmohan Singh.And its perfectly true, since 2004, GOVT OF INDIA is denying all foreign assistance in times of distress. It same during Uttarakhand floods or Chennai Floods or J&K Floods or Gujarat Floods etc.But why its a huge issue today?Simple- POLITICAL ENLIGHTENMENT.Kerala society is not like Gujarat or Uttarakhand or J&K or Bihar or Assam. The society is highly political conscious society and there is a strong political awareness and enlightenment in the society. Across India, such high degree of political awareness, one may find only within upper middle class mostly limited to urban environments. Even in major cities like Mumbai or Delhi, you are likely to see the lower strata of society almost ignorant of many political rights and political contexts. Thats why we often use the term- Luyten’s Delhi to denote the elite segment of political conscious society comprising of creamy level of Delhi’s society which you may not find in other places, say Old Delhi.Imagine if you have an entire state with a population having traits similar to that elite crowd of Luyten’s Delhi? Thats exactly whats happening in Kerala and why this debate has fired discussions in all segments of society.I have personally been in Chennai during its floods. Post floods, no one has time even to discuss or talk politics of TN too. I have heard many murmurs, mostly from upper echelons of society, how poorly AMMA (Jayalalitha) handled the situation. But I am pretty sure, rarely such comments ever came so openly in social media or even discussed by common man. It was too much restricted among small section of upper class society in their private circles. But this kind of comments or discussions were mostly unheard from much of its lower and middle class as they were not much into a political spectrum. Rather they all were worrying on rebuilding their lives back to scratch. The political consciousness is comparatively at lower end to discuss such things.This is not the same in Kerala. I was in camps for last one week, handling various relief operations. I came back to home only yesterday as was running our own coordination and control units. In my visits to various camps, I have seen many people who lost everything, still discussing why Govt of India not accepting UAE Aid. They were questioning, whats the big deal in accepting it? Many of them were in opinion that our Indian governments couldn’t give interest moratorium or price support on time, why then they blocking International Aid?If you talk national policy to them, they won’t accept that. Infact I have seen some people highlighting this policy in social media. And within next moments, someone dug out the 2016 policy which Modi government brought upI was pretty sure, prior to this floods, no one in Kerala had any clue that Modi Govt unveiled a new Disaster Management policy in 2016. But the super charged Malayali immediately dug this policy out from net, to counter the argument made by BJP and Govt of India. And its logical too.And the most popular social comments in Kerala is that, “Aren’t the laws made by Human? Can’t we change it?” … Equally we all heard this comment “If you are following Manmohan Singh Policy, why then you keep on bashing Congress and UPA then?” as a reply to Modi Govt’s insistence to follow 2004 Policy.Definitely the society carries a degree of political bias, no doubt. But that bias comes from adhering to politics of a nation/state. No one with awareness about his society can be apolitical. And Kerala is definitely a Left Leaning state (don’t assume Left as Communism), naturally the politics of right will not have much social acceptance. It will be always seen with a degree of suspicion. And the actions of NDA government reinforces that degree of suspicion.I am not blaming NDA government for any INACTION. They are doing everything as per usual/standard procedure related to a disaster.But majority of us are not expecting a standard response, rather an extraordinary response. In Kerala everyone expects India government to react with an extraordinary sense of urgency. We are not going to appreciate the standard measures as per rule-book. Thats anyway normal and something constitutionally obliged.And this is where the comparison with UAE government’s response comes in.No one in Kerala expected UAE Govt or any foreign govt to step into this crisis. But the moment the news of this crisis came out, UAE Government took an extraordinary step. They called an extraordinary cabinet meeting, got Presidential Assent to set up an National Emergency Committee in UAE to assist Kerala and their rulers openly expressed their support within a day after the disaster struck.On contrary India Govt established the National Mointoring committee chaired by Cabinet Secretary only on the 3rd day after the disaster.Within a day, UAE Central Bank issued notification that all remittances to Kerala CM Disaster Relief Fund will have a waiver from usual VAT. All financial agencies and banks in UAE were permitted to waive their fees, making it absolutely tax/charge free to remit to Relief fund. UAE Government even made a full page paper advertisement in all major newspapers across UAE seeking national support to Kerala. So as in public spaces, UAE government were broadcasting appeal videos seeking for donations to Kerala. These all were unprecedented approach.UAE Red Crescent seeking Public support for relief funds for KeralaDubai Police Video assuring their support for KeralaOfficial ad of UAE Govt supporting Kerala Relief operations and support of UAE.Within next day, UAE Customs waived all licence fees and export related fees to all cargo companies sending relief materials. On contrary it took nearly 5 days for India to waive its customs duties for importing relief materials which Indians and others were sending from many countries. It required a huge protest and social media outrage, for India’s finance ministry to grant relief. Remember in this time, almost every day Kerala Government was sending mails to Delhi, seeking relief as huge cargo loads were getting accumulated in Trivandrum and Calicut airports as Indian Customs were demanding usual duties as they had no orders for exemption.These all are watched by Malayalee community. Our News media were highlighting all these and hence Malayalee community was feeling there is a lack of urgency from India Government’s side especially when they compare with that with the actions of UAE Government.Naturally Malayalees started comparing how UAE govt pledged its support without any request, while how India govt responded despite of all pleas and requests.In my opinion, Govt of India should have taken that aid. This is because neither Kerala nor India Govt sought aid from any one. No one in Kerala Govt made a formal or informal appeal to any country to assist. But its so heartwarming to see countries like UAE, Qatar, Japan, Thailand, Maldives etc rushing with all sorts of aid.There is one important point to understand. India is definitely a great nation with its own independent foreign policy and superior military might. But India is equally a political union, not an Unitary Nation. While India has its own foreign policies which sometimes may be hostile to other nations, it may not be nessecary that states have same approach. For example, its all know that India-Maldives relationship has reached its lowest level in recent times. So naturally for many Non-Malayalees, they may be surprised seeing Maldives rushing to aid Kerala. The fact many don’t understand is that Maldives and Kerala has a huge historical and socio-cultural relationship which they may not have with other states. A good percentage of Maldivian citizens consider Trivandrum as their second home. Its almost a Maldivian city for many of them as they come to the city for all their medical needs, their education purposes or even for a simple shopping. Much of Indians in Maldives who are involved in teaching, medical services are Malayalees. Naturally the bonding between a Maldivian and Malayalee will be much more than other Indians.This similar cultural bonding of various states with other countries can be seen well. For example, if any disaster happens to Punjab, the first country to respond would be Canada. The cultural bonding between Canada and Punjab is definitely too high, more than than with Delhi or Rajasthan. Same way when Chennai was flooded, it was Malaysia and Singapore who promised all help because of their cultural bonding. We don’t see Malayasia rushing to help to Kerala as our cultural linkages are too low.These linkages plays a key role in all areas and hence the rules must be flexible to booster such cultural linkages.I perfectly find Narendra Modi Government drafted National Disaster Management Policy 2016 much more pragmatic and sensible than Manmohan Singh Policy. We don’t need be in false ego that we have all capacity to help our people in times of need. Even the superpower USA accepted external aid during their worst times like Katrina Cyclones etc. We don’t need to request any nation for aid. But if any nation voluntary comes and offer aid, why should we deny it.Policy as per National Disaster Management Policy of 2016 unveiled by Modi GovtWe can perfectly deny all aid as Inter-Government transfers. There is no need of such inter-government credit which may carry invisible strings for future. Rather why don’t we allow foreign governments to directly contribute to Relief fund as a donation? Why should we deny someone donating for a cause?So my take is, Modi government should have upheld their own policy rather taking Manmohan Singh Policy as they always criticized most of the policies and governance of MMS Govt.Currently this matter is not a relief/disaster management issue. Rather strictly political. And I believe it will affect BJP’s electoral prospects in Kerala so rapidly. Much of my pro-BJP friends as well as sympathizers have expressed their displeasure with govt’s action. Infact I am sure that even BJP Leaders from Kerala realized this problem. Thats why we had Central Tourism Minister- Alphonse Kannanthanam, who normally endorses blindly what Modi says, openly said that he will try his level best for changing the policy of Indian Govt in this. But I feel, BJP National leadership hasn’t understood the pulse correctly and definitely it will have its implications in coming elections.Edit 1So many Quorans made a comment that UAE didn’t offer any amount and it was fake news based on a statement of UAE Ambassador to Indian ExpressKerala floods: UAE says nothing official yet, no amount of financial aid announcedWell, its true that Ambassador made a statement yesterday that AN AMOUNT AS SUCH ISN’T ANNOUNCEDAt the same time, he hasn’t said, UAE didn’t discuss financial aid with Government of India. Infact, his statement was a balancing act as its true that UAE DIDN’T FORMALLY ANNOUNCED AID PUBLICALLY, but informally it was already done with government of India and concerned ministry.Diplomats always value diplomacy. They can’t put the host country’s govt in a crisis because of them. The current matter of aid has become a Political controversy and it has seriously affected Indian government. Naturally no diplomat would add fire to it. Imagine if UAE Ambassador said that UAE offered an aid of $100 million but India govt rejected it. It shall definitely create more rift between MEA-India and MFA-UAE. Because no diplomat is expected to disclose things that discussed informally or behind the curtains. Please note- diplomacy never happens over Twitter or Facebook.At the same time, the news is not fake. Because we have enough sources to understand the authenticity of news. Definitely you can’t expect senior central Minister like Alphonse Kannanthanam or similar requesting to PM to review the concept of foreign aid, based on fake news. Nor so as Foreign Ministry of India won’t be sending letters rejecting foreign aid if there is no proposal at first place.UAE is one country, that harshly prosecutes people for fake news. A simple whatsapp message citing unverified news/fake news could land a person in jail for 10 years. In such a country, do you think, Newspapers would publish such a news as its top headline without being sure about it? If it was a fake news, definitely UAE government would have prosecuted these newspapersHave anyone seen Ministry of External Affairs- India or PMO citing the news as fake? Why? Because they know its true and they can’t say that no such thing has happened.UAE Ambassador has effectively tried to downplay the political controversy of it, by citing the technical part, ie its never announced formally. He never said no such financial aid being offered as the intent of offer was already made to Govt of India. And thats exactly what any true professional Diplomat would do in such a situation.Equally it was unprofessional from CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s part to disclose things privately discussed between 2 heads of the state, though this debate helped to review the concept of foreign aid in times of distress.The fake news analogy was projected by Pro-BJP media like Republic TV or Zee News or similar as well as their cheer sites like Postcard etc as for a week, BJP Kerala Unit was at receiving end. They need a news to ensure BJP Leadership is vindicated from such a situation.Republic TV’s parent channel-Asianet News which have more neutral/independent journalism, has given a news from Dubai that UAE Govt would officially clarify this matter in coming days after the ministry of foreign affairs reopen tomorrow (which was closed due to Eid holidays).

Why doesn’t HPCL absorb GATs or frame any recruitment policy for them?Skill Development at HPCL reminds me of the pre independence days when the British came and exploited the Indians leaving the skilled Indians lose their profession and trade in what they were world leaders.Who is a GAT?GAT is the acronym for Graduate Apprentice Trainee. Here the Gat is referred to the Graduate Apprentice Trainees working at the marketing locations in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited ( i.e. HPCL ). It was back in Sept 2016 when the notification for the engagement of GATs was issued and published by HPCL. As an opportunity for employment, Fresher Engineers from across the country applied. They had made through a series of tests which include Computer Based Test i.e.CBT), Panel interviews and medical tests. A 240 number of candidates were selected and posted at the marketing locations across India. These marketing locations include LPG cylinder bottling plant, Terminals, Depos, Air Fueling Stations, Regional Offices, etc.Skill Development at HPCL-The Present Scenario.In India, nowadays the skill development team is like praising the steps being taken to uplift the condition of unemployment issue. The Skill Development Programme was set up and adopted to increase the employment opportunities for freshers (in our case Engineers). But little know the fact that this skill development programmes are not really to mean their core objectives. I am keeping the experience from the GAT perspective and expect you to keep yourselves in our position to understand this better.With lots of hopes and desires young graduates joined the HPCL. We were full of joy, energy and enthusiasm. We had faith, we had hopes, we believed in The Skill India Programme. We believed what turned out to be temporary. We were proud of joining this esteemed organization. We were proud to be called the one who would now serve our nation. Everything and Everyone was new. We were new.We were posted at the markrting locations and mostly all are situated at remote locations. Soon we learnt the basics, improved on and have dealt with all working conditions. We gave our very best.Now at this point of time, when it’s more than 10 months for us working here as part of the HPCL, nothing has been done by the Government and by HPCL for our recruitment.GATs all over India are being engaged by most companies and this activity is being monitored by the the Ministry of Human Resource. There is an act which governs this process and a contract is signed between the Apprentice and the Employer. This act is the Apprentice Act (1961). Here there is clause which favours the employer as well as the Apprentice, but to reality mostly favours the Employer. The Section 22 here reads…..“It shall not be obligatory on the part of the Employer to offer an employment to the apprentice on completion of period of apprenticeship training in his establishment”.Over the years there have been several amendments to this act. One such amendment was made in the year 2014 which is The Apprentices Act (amendment), 2014. The act reads in its section 22(i) ….“Every employer shall formulate its own policy for recruiting any apprentice who has completed the period of apprenticeship training in his establishment”.The powerful, the mightier have always manipulated the rules according to his own benefits or interests. One such case has happened with us (GATs). Here the same has been done by HPCL against the GATs. As against the above Section 22(I) of the Apprentice Act 2014, the HPCL contract has sticked to the previous clause from the the Apprentice Act 1961. We had a contract signed between GATs and HPCL.Although it (contract) read that” It shall not be obligatory on the part of the employer to offer an employment to the apprentice on completion of period of his apprenticeship training in his establishment nor shall it be obligatory on the part of the apprentice to accept an employment under the employer.Provided that if there is any recruitment, employer shall formulate its own policy for recruiting any apprentice who has completed the period of apprenticeship training in his establishment in terms of sub-section (1) of section (22) of the Act.” , there was not a statement which would deny the recruitment or absorption of the GATs.HPCL had also sent an advisory letter to the Location Incharge about the same, wherein it was clearly stated that “HPCL shall not offer employment to the apprentice on completion of period of his apprenticeship training”. This was now something that was not informed to us. We approached a few Officials from the Human Resource Team, and in reply what they told us was that they had no policy for our recruitment or absorption at that moment.Many officials claimed that HPCL would offer permanent employment to GATs as other PSU do and have done in the past.. This was just to take out their work done from the GATs.Recently a recruitment notification for Graduate Trainees 2018 was published by HPCL, When went through it carefully there was no mention of the GATs. The fact is that they have not made any recruitment policy for the absorption of GATs yet. We then tried to contact the HPCL team in this regard, we tried mailing and in return our mail ids (provided by HPCL) were blocked. We asked them to reply us if they have any policy for us. Nothing was received from their part in this regard up to date. HPCL has always denied communication with us.A few of us lodged a complaint against the Employer (i.e. HPCL) in the Public Grieveance portal regarding the same issue. Finally we now have something that is officially from the HPCL team and which confirms for their intentions with this programme. In reply the General Manager – Human Resources (Marketing Division) wrote that currently there is no absorption policy for Graduate Apprentice Trainee.Here let us ask ourselves a simple question is this the same Skill India Programme in which we believed and became a part of it? Is it the same which just is a skill development programme and is not an employment generation programme? Is it the same in which the Act itself is not being followed? And if the answer to it is yes, then its time to brainstorm this critical issue. For GATs this nothing but a complete waste of one year. To talk of the skills we acquired here during our tenure of 12 months, it is very clear that we won’t be able to apply those in any institutions other than HPCL. One reason to this is all oil and natural gas companies being monitored by government and these PSUs have their own recruitment policies which won’t give any preference to the GATs or the Apprenticeship certificates which we would receive after the completion of this programme.The decision we took hoping that we had now achieved something that would make us proud, by joining here at HPCL, has brought a real disgrace to us. What is the use of such Apprenticeship Programme which would not result in employment? To us it has proved useless. It has ruined our career and thus our life.The question then arises, why does HPCL don’t want to absorb GATs?This trained workforce is capable of handling every sort of work as they have been trained by the employer and that too within the establishment itself. They are now well familiar with the company and the work. What is that is restricting or limiting the employer from providing these GATs with permanent employment? It is the greedy policy of getting cheap manpower by engaging batches after batches of GATs.For us it won’t be that easy to find a respectable career considering this work experience which involves the LPG operations.My suggestion to this apprenticeship training would be if the PSU and the Government cannot offer employment to apprentices, please provide these GATs with such an experience that they could apply the experience somewhere else in the private companies.. For now we don’t find this apprenticeship training going good and needs a lot of research and improvements to really tackle unemployment and eleviate the skills of young graduates. This is just an exploitation. Be careful with all these things..Hope others would learn a lesson from our failure.

Jocko fundamentally knows little to nothing about the training of police officers. To begin-with, officers do not go through basic training. That’s strictly the military.Standards for training, certification, and retention of certification as a peace officer vary from state to state (in accordance with state law), but there are some generalizations that can be made, as a lot of the training requirements are similar.I can give you a description of what the agency I trained-with required, and it probably won’t be too dissimilar from what you would find in a lot of agencies. All agencies are required to meet their state’s minimum training requirements. And that’s what you often find with small agencies. Larger agencies tend to exceed the minimum… sometimes by a great deal.The requirements are usually determined by a commission that comes under the state’s Department of Justice. In my case, it was called the P.O.S.T commission (Peace Officers’ Standards and Training). Some other states use that same name. Some have their own name for the agency, but all states have an equivalent.A Bachelor’s Degree in college usually requires the completion of around 1920 total contact hours (hours where a teacher is actually lecturing) in the classroom. This is usually spread over four years, with an average of about 15 actual contact hours spent in the classroom per week. My police academy was 8 contact hours per day, five days a week (some academies are ‘live-in’…. most you are there during business hours and go home at night. In mine I reported at 8 AM and got off at 5 PM, except on days when we had to stay late for training that had to be conducted at night, when the training day would occasionally be as long as 12 hours) for a total of 24 weeks. In all, I received 1912 contact hours of training to graduate the academy. That’s within 8 hours (1 additional day) of the same amount of contact hours required for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.And in college, you almost have to work at it to flunk out. Many of the elective classes are pushovers. At the academy, all classes cover critical information, any test failed can be retaken once, and if failed a second time the result is expulsion. My academy class started 64 recruits, and graduated 28. It is not uncommon for 40% to 50% of a police academy class to be lost over the course of instruction.After you successfully complete the academy, you are typically put into a Field Training Program. In that portion of training, the Field Training Officer (FTO) rides with the trainee during the course of a normal day, evaluates performance, provides situational instruction, and files daily reports on the trainee’s progress. FTOs are typically required to be certified as such by the state before taking on a trainee. The FTO course typically takes about a week of instruction to certify an FTO, and most departments require several years experience before they’ll even send an officer for FTO certification. FTO’s typically receive some kind of additional pay incentive for being FTOs, though it’s typically not a great amount (usually some thing like a 5% pay increase).The FTO typically writes a daily review of the trainee’s performance in given situations, and has a specified program of instruction to complete over the course of the FTO program. This usually includes completely covering the Departmental Policy and Procedures manual, as well as a list of specific types of calls the trainee has to handle and be evaluated-on on patrol. The trainee typically receives written examinations during the program as well. It’s quite common for an officer to be assigned a detail, only to have one of the departmental FTOs come up on the air and say his trainee will take that call for training purposes so he can get that particular type of call checked off the curriculum. In addition to the daily reviews, FTOs will typically write weekly and monthly summaries of what was accomplished during training. The FTO reports are all reviewed typically by the department’s training section, and often the precinct Captain of the precinct the trainee is operating out of. If a trainee makes a mistake in how a situation or a procedure is handled, he/she will be instructed on the correct way to handle it. If they make the same mistake a second time, they typically are given a warning concerning it in writing, and if they make it a third time their employment with the agency is terminated.I’ll give you an example. We once went to a call where a woman wanted to report a theft. She came out on the front porch to meet us. I asked for her ID to complete the report, and she went back into the house by herself to get it. Basic officer safety requires that once you make contact with a citizen, you NEVER let them go back into a place where they could have weapons concealed unescorted. You go in with them if they have to go back into the house. I was verbally instructed by my FTO not to make that mistake again. A couple of weeks later, in another of what seemed to be a wholly innocuous situation, I made the same mistake… letting someone go back into their house unescorted. I received a written reprimand on the issue, along with written notification that if it happened again my employment would be terminated.Our FTO program was six months long, with the trainee rotating through all three shifts, spending two months working each. Each shift change also got you a different FTO….. which tended to preclude personal animosity getting in the way of performance evaluation. At the end of the program, all three of your FTOs get together and complete an overall evaluation of your performance during the training period. The FTO training period typically flunks out about half the officers being trained/tested.After successful completion of an FTO program, the officer is typically assigned a shift. He may be working with another officer, or may be taking calls solo…. it just depends on the kinds of patrol the department runs. The advantage to two officer cars is your cover is right there with you. The advantage to single officer cars is you get wider coverage and quicker response times. Bigger agencies typically operate down a lot of positions these days, and only have single officer cars as a result. The officer starts out at this point very much on his or her own. However, reporting requirements are extensive and comprehensive and the officers reports are heavily scrutinized and performance is corrected accordingly throughout the officer’s probation period. It is not uncommon fr a rookie officer to have to revisit call scenes and redo reports sometime three or four times. If the officer’s reports and time management don’t dramatically improve during this period, they probably won;t make probation. Poor report writing kills more police careers than any other single factor, and, oddly enough, good report writing results in learning the job better than just about anything else. Imagine if you are trying to explain something to experts on a given subject that you are relatively new-to, and your trying to cover all relevant aspects of the subject that might occur to these experts as being necessary to a completed investigation. Detail is extremely important. And then you must write it in a way that is easily understandable and efficiently presented. You realize things you did wrong or didn’t do that you should have in the course of writing a good report. And many, many times I have come to realize the significance of a clue or situation in the course of putting my investigation on paper.Once the officer starts working a shift, he or she has a probation period to complete. These are typically a year to two years in length. During the probation period, the officer typically receives monthly performance reports. After probation, the performance reviews are typically annual. During the probation period, an officer can be terminated for any reason or no reason whatsoever. Typically the officer is not told the reason they have been terminated, as that would potentially open the door for the officer firing a wrongful termination law suit if he felt the termination was undeserved. Often, though, the officer is going to know the reason even if they don’t tell him. He’ll be aware of some screw-up he made, or know he’s having trouble with report writing as his reports are continually kicked-back for rewriting, but they’ll never tell him the specific reason. Probably 80% of officers who make it through FTO also make it through probation.Once the Officer has completed the state certified academy, a certified FTO program, and is still employed at the end of his or her probation, the state awards what is called a basic POST certification (i.e. effectively a state license to serve as a peace officer).P.O.S.T. certifications for line officers in my state came at three levels: Basic (complete training as described above), Intermediate (on my agency, have a Basic certificate, and then successfully complete three years of regular duty while at the same time acquiring a specified number of ‘training points’ (I’ll explain those later) or a college degree and minimum required training points, and an Advanced certificate required a total of eleven years service, along with the college degree and/or sufficiently accumulated training points.Additionally Supervisor’s and Management P.O.S.T. certificates are issued with the requisite police and civilian education (minimum two years college), training points, and two years time in service functioning at the certified position. Each promotion within the department puts you into another probation period (typically a year), during which time failure to make probation resulted in either termination of employment or voluntary reduction in rank to the previously attained level. On our department, roughly 30% of the promoted supervisors failed to make probation.Now… as to training points. Points are awarded and tracked for accredited police-related training successfully completed by the officer. There are a certain number of state mandated training courses each year… mostly to cover perishable skills (such as range qualification, unarmed defensive tactics, and legal updates. Law… particularly case law, changes constantly). The state required officers to successfully shoot a range program once a year, and successfully complete annual legal update training and unarmed defensive tactics refreshers. My agency shot four ranges per year (one a night range), completed four unarmed defensive tactics courses (16 hours of instruction per course), and four hours of legal updates per range course. Failure in any portion of the training and evaluation allowed for one chance at remediation, and failure a second time meant termination of employment. For these ‘perishable skills’ training periods, the officers were each given a number of training points.In addition to the perishable skills training and testing, our department required an additional advanced officer course for all working officers every two years. These AOCs were typically two weeks in length (though sometimes three), and included refresher EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operations Course… essentially pursuit driving taught on a professional driving course) and ‘shoot-don’t shoot’ scenarios (You are put in front of a life-sized screen and a computer generates scenarios you have to confront and decide if you are going to draw your weapon at all, and when and if you need to shoot to save your life or someone else’s. You use your duty weapon and gear, loaded with wax bullets. If you shoot, the program stops instantly and it is noted where your bullet struck. Pretty good stuff). The second week is typically spent in classes on de-escalating situations, dealing with the mentally ill, verbal judo, or introduction to and certification with a less lethal weapon like a stun gun, Taser, or new chemical weapon. Typically such training required the officer to undergo having the weapon used on them so that they would have an idea of just how incapacitating it would be on suspects and on yourself if taken away from you and used on you.The training points awarded in these mandated trainings were not close to enough to acquire your next level certification in the minimum required times. And getting the next level certification was important because with the certification came a pay increase. To get the next level certification in minimum time, the officer would have to take and pass a number of certified law enforcement training courses on his or her own time.This worked out well for the department, because training costs money. Most large departments are already working down a large number of officers. Philadelphia PD, for example, is currently down about 400 positions. This means that the average big city cop probably typically works a 60 hour work week… and I have had weeks on occasion where I had to put in 84 hours. When you have to let people off for training, they have to be replaced… which means the training costs not only the cost of the course, but the replacement overtime. My department’s training range budget (just for the ranges… not other training) was 3 million annually.The way the department compensated the officer for the ‘elective’ training taken each year, was to provide incentive pay. If you successfully completed a course, you were awarded so many training points, AND you were given a level of pay increase monthly for completing 80 hours of certified training the previous year. The officers used comp time (time-off awarded in lieu of pay for overtime work) or accrued vacation to attend the classes, which were typically one or two weeks in length. As an example, I attended two weeks training as a sergeant on how to manage various emergency situations in the field one year and two weeks of basic hostage negotiations the next.In addition to the the state required annual training and the ‘elective’ training officers put themselves through on their own time, the department will periodically have training when a situation that demands it arises. For example, after 9/11, we were required to take three days training on recognizing and interdicting terrorist activities. And we would periodically be pulled-in to get refresher training on crowd control and protest management if a situation arose that looked like it might be needed.I’ve known officers who would take as many as six or seven elective courses a year (on their own time using comp time and vacation), not because they got more incentive pay for that level of training, but because they wanted the training points accumulated for purposes of promotion (promotions are competitive) or preferred duty assignment (to the detective bureau for example).Typically, given all the variation on things you are going to run into as a cop, it takes about five years experience for the cop to become fully competent and be ready to handle any situation he or she might be faced-with. The ones who are born to it… the really good ones, can become competent in about three years. But in all, to become a competent police officer in a big city environment, where it never lets up, and the possibility of being in a critical situation (one where you may have to use deadly force) arises at least weekly, takes training and experience roughly equivalent to somewhere between a Masters degree and a Doctorate. And that is NOT an exaggeration.Consider this: Police killed 41 ‘unarmed’ people last year in trhe course of making roughly ten million arrests… all but about 6 of which were attacking the cops and/or trying to take their guns at the times of the shooting. Medical doctors had about 148,000 deaths that could ultimately be attributed to malpractice in the same period. People make mistakes in complex situations. The way to improve them is more training and more stringent requirements…. not less.The calls for defunding the police are exactly the opposite of what is needed. Officers are universally properly motivated when entering the job. Some ‘burn out’ over time. What is required is additional training… and training costs money, and is almost always the first thing to go when budgets get short.Also, you find most smaller departments only hire officers who already have their P.O.S.T. certification because they cannot afford the training it takes for an officer to get there. To that end, it is also not at all uncommon for candidates for police jobs to put themselves (rather than getting hired and having an agency sponsor you) through a state certified academy (the average cost is between ten and twenty thousand for a six month course) to get the graduation certificate… making them infinitely more attractive to a smaller agency that doesn’t have a training budget that allows for academy participation.Keep in mind too that the term ‘training’ is conceptually very broad. In police work, and in expert certification for the courts, the term ‘training and experience’ is used. That’s because experience is the most valuable kind of ‘training’ you can get. Ask Jocko if he learned more about survival in a firefight at the range or in having the experience of being in a fire fight. Police officers are getting ‘on-the-job training every day they go out on patrol. And while ‘training’ in the military primarily involves physical preparation and mastering techniques and equipment, the OJT officers get every day involves mastering situations…. many of which I guarantee you will never have seen before even if you have been on the job twenty years…. and some NOBODY has ever seen before. There is no other job in the world that requires thinking on your feet and applying knowledge and thought to actions on an immediate basis as policing. Police have to make instantaneous legal decisions instantaneously that will be argued by the best and most accomplished lawyers in the country all the way to the Supreme Court. And they have to make those decisions based not on specific intimate knowledge of reams of codified legal descriptions and 300 page court decrees, but primarily on principles.A patrol officer is literally in a classroom all day long, where coming up with the wrong answer…. maybe to a question that has never been asked before on a subject never before discussed can get you or someone else killed or completely ruin someone’s life. There is simply no more difficult job to wholly correct in the world.Standards vary to some degree from state to state, depending on what the state’s legal requirements for training and police certification are. And I have a suggestion that would greatly improve policing nationally.It’s okay to have federal standards in certain aspects of policing for all police agencies, such as now are being considered by Congress (e.g body cams for all, and restrictions on the applications of carotid restrain). But in my opinion FAR more effective in developing the kinds of policing people universally want is to have individual agencies be required to be nationally accredited. That allows the department to train and organize according to the local state’s standards (one size does NOT fit all across the nation), but requires they meet tested competency standards on a continual basis.There is an national organization called the Commission for the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). In order to be CALEA certified, an agency must apply for it, and then meet standards for training, records keeping, evidence processing, operating policies and procedures, etc. set by CALEA, both for initial certification, and on an ongoing basis. Right now, there are only a small percentage of agencies across the US which are CALEA certified, but those agencies meet exceptional standards in order to retain their CALEA certification. It is not uncommon, for example, for a CALEA certified agency to have formalized training for their officers one week out of every month or two. And there are absolute reporting and record-keeping requirements on use of force and direct supervision and remediate action or termination of officers staring to show a trend toward being abusive, as well as examination on a continual basis of departmental compliance with its own [policies and procedures and revisions of those P & Ps when a better way of doing things is determined.Most agencies avoid CALEA certification, because it ends up being very, very expensive, and they cannot get their city or county governments to authorize sufficient funding to accomplish it.However, CALEA certification actually defrays costs in some areas… such as reduced law suits resulting from well-trained departments and for those agencies that are not self-insuring, reduced payments to their risk-management insurance carriers. And if you are going to take into consideration the literally hundreds of millions of dollars in damages resulting from the recent riots…. the additional cost of CALEA certification (and the additional training,certification, and management that entails) might well have been an extreme bargain. If the MPD had been CALEA certified, for example, I can almost guarantee Officer Chauvin would not have been still employed there (given his use of force complaint record), nor would he have been able to work elsewhere as an officer unless the hiring agency chose to ignore the record… because the record would definitely be available to the hiring agency.Another advantage to CALEA certification is police union buy-in. Typically becoming CALEA certified is part of an agency’s collective bargaining package when negotiating police contracts. The union gets additional training for their officers, and because law suit costs typically go down, it is not at all uncommon for agencies to agree to an additional pay increase for officers overall…. essentially for being ‘more’ professional. In return the union contractually agrees to ‘bad’ officers being much easier to terminate, as they are not meeting the new professional standards. they still get due process, but certain patterns of behavior now become intolerable to both the unions and the agency.I’m an advocate for CALEA because my agency was CALEA certified… and though meeting their standards was a pain in the ass, it meant a better, more professional agency overall, as well as us being better compensated than most.If you want more information on CALEA, your agency is not CALEA certified, and you are considering bringing CALEA certification up for your city or county at the next county council or city manager meeting, you can find more information on them here: The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.See also: Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies - Wikipedia