CPD: Cops will have 40 hours of training every year by 2021

By 2021, every member of the Chicago Police Department will undergo 40 annual hours of in-service training focusing on officers use of force, police pursuits of criminal suspects, civil and human rights, as well as officers’ and civilians’ mental health, the department announced Friday.

Officers will gradually build up to the 40 annual hours in the years before 2021, according to CPD. Last year, they were required for four hours, and this year they were on the hook for 16. In 2019, 32 hours will be mandated with the 40-hour policy going into effect the next year.

The department’s in-service training came under heavy scrutiny when the Department of Justice investigated the department and found “severely deficient training procedures.”

The department is also making an effort to make field training more hands-on for new recruits. In the past, field training officers were often partnered with more than one probationary police officer. This year, according to CPD, field training officers will be partnered with just one probationary officer.

Additionally, the department is expanding its Crisis Intervention Training and moving it from the police academy to the Bureau of Patrol. About 2,500 of the department’s roughly 13,000 officers have the training now. By the end of the year, all patrol officers will be equipped with bodycams.

In an effort to boost supervision, CPD added 214 sergeants, 70 lieutenants, seven captains, 270 detectives, along with 119 probationary officers last year. Also in 2017, every shift in every district was assigned a watch operations lieutenant.

However, there has yet to be a net increase in the number of patrol officers across Chicago’s 22 police districts.

The changes in training were “accompanied by decreases” in complaints, police shootings and uses of force, according to the department.