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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

New Youth Police Training Program


The following article in a recent Democrat and Chronicle issue explains a new program proposed by the city's police chief that encourages high school students to study law and criminal justice at MCC.

The City School District and Rochester Police Department are planning a program that could offer high school kids an accelerated career path while increasing the number of black and Hispanic police officers in Rochester.

"We're calling it the College to Careers Transitions Initiative," Police Chief David T. Moore said. "It gives officers an opportunity to teach different classes so we can prepare our young people to go into college and graduate MCC (Monroe Community College) ... hopefully with an associate's (degree)."

Moore said that foundation would pave the way for participants to become certified police officers.

The program will be similar to one Moore established four years ago in three high schools in Prince George's Community College in Prince George's County, Md. That program was part of an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education in Washington, D.C., and the League for Innovation in the Community College, in Phoenix.

Maj. Larry Shanks, who helped Moore organize the Maryland program and directs the Prince George's County Police Academy, will visit Rochester to present the plan to the City Council's Public Safety Committee on Jan. 28.

The concept, which has the support of Rochester schools Superintendent Manuel Rivera, calls for police officers to teach criminal justice courses in grades nine and up.

"It is not only good for our young people to be more successful in school, it's great for our community in the long term with kids coming right out of our school system to come back and serve as police officers," Rivera said. "We have not yet established specific plans, but I will be joining with the police to start implementing this in September."

The program could help city schools retain students by granting them between 10 and 15 credits toward a degree in criminal justice at MCC upon graduation from high school.

City officials noted that the program could benefit Monroe Community College by supplying a steady flow of committed students into its criminal justice program. "I've talked to Tom Flynn, president of MCC, and he likes the concept also," Moore said.

Moore is also excited about the program, in part, because it could also help the police department achieve its goal of making minorities at least 25 percent of its new hires.

"The beauty of this is having police in the classroom to serve as role models in the schools. As a police chief, I can't think of a better way to have a feeder program for recruitment — especially in the minority community," Moore said. "We (as a police department) need to look like our community.

"We want homegrown, grassroots kids to be in our police department. Outsiders are welcome, but I think it's important to our community to have young people who really understand our neighborhoods to go back and patrol our neighborhoods. I think that will develop a great relationship between the police and the community."

Dianne E McConkey
Public Affairs
01/08/2007