Program give Columbus police recruits exposure to community

Yahoo

13-05-2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — It's been five years since the Columbus Division of Police started what the department calls the immersion training program, which engages new officers with the community to give them a better understanding of who lives there.
Now, the benefits of the program are becoming evident, police leaders said, based on crime in the city and people's relationship with police.
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More than a dozen new recruit classes have been through the training.
City leaders started the immersion program following civil unrest in Columbus and nationwide during 2020. It is one of many changes the division has made since then.
'What we identified was a lot of the recruits coming to Columbus now, they aren't from Columbus, so they're not aware of the city,' Columbus Division of Police Sgt. Keith Barker said. 'This allows them the opportunity in a low-stress environment to engage in a community, to learn about what the community's concerns are, to hear it, and real-world perspective.'
The immersion program is several weeks long and consists of several parts. Officers start in a classroom environment by learning resources available in their assigned zone, followed by volunteer work.
Last week, some of the officers volunteered at Jordan's Crossing, a non-profit organization in the North Hilltop section of the city.
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'We are a resource center operation,' Jordan's Crossing Director Jennifer Rieser Braunm said. 'Six days a week, we do around 5,000 meals a week. We send people to treatment. We have showers for the people that don't have running water in their homes or living on the land. We have a free store, we have a clothing closet.'
Rieser Braunm said Jordan's Crossing was one of the original partners with the program. She said it helps people who utilize their services to form a better relationship with police.
'They come in street clothes and they are extremely patient with our people,' she said of the officers. 'It's a different level of respect that's earned. I believe you have someone that maybe didn't, didn't want to be around a police officer, and here they are at the free store on a random Wednesday dealing with a police officer, and when they find that out, it's like, wow, that guy really is real.'
The next part of the program is for the officers to identify a problem they see in the community and find a solution. After implementing that solution, the new officers must present it to the division.
'So, when they are responding to that call, instead of saying, 'Hey, you can go down to Jordan's Crossing, I heard about them,' they say, 'Hey, I've actually done some service work at Jordan's Crossing,'' Chairperson of Public Safety at Franklin University Dr. Chanelle Jones said.
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Jones helped create the immersion program. She said the recruits have identified and found solutions to more than 160 problems in the city. Some of those are giving away steering wheel locks to prevent car theft, giving away gun locks to prevent accidental shootings and informing immigrant communities.
She is also a part of the city's civilian police review board. Jones said from 2023-2024 officer complaints to the inspector general's office decreased by 11 percent. She credits the program for helping make that happen.
'We are very, very proud of the different projects that our officers have done,' Jones said. 'They're truly making an impact and really changing the landscape of how we look at police community relations here in Columbus.'
She said in the last five years, the program has directly impacted about 35,000 people. She said the indirect impact is immeasurable.
City Attorney Zach Klein, who also played a role in creating the program, credits the program as a big reason for improving the community's relationship with police in recent years.
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'They grow, the community grows,' he said. 'It's a win-win for public safety, and it's a really special opportunity for the officers in the community to come together.'
Program leaders said that in the coming years, they hope to expand the immersion program to include not just the new recruits, but more tenured officers.
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