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Ohio AG wants tougher officer-training standards
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Attorney General Mike DeWine has asked the state panel that oversees officer training to adopt further standards to ensure applicants to Ohio’s training academies are qualified to serve.
Drug screening, psychological exams and other pre-certification testing would be a next step in the state’s efforts to ensure officers are adequately trained.
“I believe it is time to make [these standards] uniform across the state of Ohio,” DeWine said during a Tuesday news conference near the Statehouse. “The certificate that says someone is a police officer in the state of Ohio comes from the state of Ohio. Therefore, there should be some uniformity about the requirements that have to be met before someone can become a police officer. We need the best candidates possible to become the next generation of peace officers in the state of Ohio.”
The pre-certification standards were among the recommendations of the Attorney General’s Advisory Group on Law Enforcement Training, formed in response to police shooting incidents in Cleveland and elsewhere in Ohio and other states.
Earlier this year, the task force offered more than two dozen recommendations for improving officer training, including increasing basic training and continuing education required for officers.
Some of the recommendations already have been implemented, including increasing basic training hours to 653 from 605 and annual training hours to 20 by 2017 from the current four-hour requirement, DeWine said.
DeWine, a Republican, said it’s time to move forward on other advisory-group recommendations, namely requiring drug screening, psychological exams, lie-detector tests and physical-fitness screening for all applicants enrolling into training academies.
DeWine also wants certain sex crimes to be added to the list of convictions that would block applicants from officer-training programs.
Academies in Ohio’s largest cities already have the standards in place, DeWine said. But he asked the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission to adopt the standards for all academies statewide.
DeWine hopes the panel will adopt the standards statewide at its meeting next month.
Fayette County Sheriff Vernon Stanforth, who serves as chairman of the commission, said the group would consider DeWine’s recommendation.