The Clark County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday its first law enforcement class offered through the Southwest Washington Regional Basic Law Enforcement Academy in Clark County has been scheduled for Nov. 27.
Currently, most recruits must travel to the existing academy in Burien for the required training program. Local agencies, including the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, had to compete with agencies from across the state for the limited training slots, making it difficult to recruit new deputies and officers.
The regional academy will also be an opportunity for local law enforcement to be instructors, facilitators and mentors, a Wednesday news release said.
The Basic Law Enforcement Academy is Washington’s mandated training academy for all city and county entry-level peace officers in the state. The regional academy will accommodate up to 30 students per class and run two classes per year. Each class will teach the 720-hour curriculum over approximately 18 weeks. The training model provides a standard training curriculum to ensure all officers have the same base-level understanding of their responsibility to the communities they serve, standards to uphold and education for effective community-oriented policing.
