North Dakota is giving trained military police officers an easier path for transitioning to civilian law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The North Dakota National Guard struck a deal recently with the North Dakota Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to offer certain military police officers a partial training waiver as they attempt to join law enforcement in the Peace Garden State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of going through the usual 12-week training process, Army and Marine military police are now eligible to train for just two weeks. They must still pass the same final exams as everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur soldiers and airmen go through military training that in many cases makes them better or at least competitive for civilian jobs,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Al Dohrmann, adjutant general for the North Dakota National Guard. \u201cWe wanted to make sure our military members get civilian credit for their military-acquired skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This waiver is currently not available to Air Force and Navy police officers but hopefully will be soon, said Lt. Dan Haugen, training director for North Dakota\u2019s Law Enforcement Training Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shorter training course will focus on issues that might not have come up during the prospective officers\u2019 time in the military, like criminal law, juvenile law, traffic law and rules governing searches and seizures, Haugen said. It will also include an emphasis on North Dakota-specific police procedures, Dohrmann added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that with two weeks and their military police background that there\u2019ll be highly qualified police officers in our state,\u201d Haugen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haugen was a Marine police officer from 1994-98 who had to go through the then-mandatory 12-week course for North Dakota law enforcement. He found it redundant given that a lot of what he was being taught overlapped with his military experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He believes that military personnel are generally well-suited for civilian law-enforcement work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur core function is protecting and serving the public or the military on the base where we\u2019re stationed,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re taught is essentially the same, it\u2019s just how we go about doing it that\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the North Dakota National Guard\u2019s perspective, this waiver also serves as a recruitment and retention tactic, according to Dohrmann. Thanks to this initiative, an aspiring police officer can join the North Dakota National Guard, get a free education while going through basic training and then become a civilian officer 10 weeks earlier than was previously allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe really look at this as a potential win-win,\u201d Dohrmann said. \u201cWe have a workforce shortage in North Dakota \u2026 and our hope is that with this accelerated process, we\u2019ll get more young people interested in being a policeman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dohrmann said that military training allows these officers to become \u201cmuch more adaptive\u201d to crisis situations and helps them learn to \u201cmake better decisions when under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like Haugen, he believes that military and civilian police officers share certain traits that make service members ideal fits for those roles once they return to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll that training experience that employee gets while they\u2019re in the National Guard will make them a better employee when they get back home,\u201d Dohrmann said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Instead of going through the usual 12-week training process, Army and Marine police officers are now eligible to take a two-week course before their final exams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":102585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,12,26,19,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3044],"class_list":["post-67455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-news","category-newsletters","category-veterans","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DTGNET4NQFCERGEHQPLB4RTT5A","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/employment\/2019\/05\/31\/this-state-will-turn-vet-mps-into-police-officers-with-just-2-weeks-of-training\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n