John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight
Officers in South Dakota’s Basic Law Enforcement Certification course will have an extra lesson on ethics and the role of the state’s police commission, starting with the current cohort.
Hank Prim, director of law enforcement training for the state Division of Criminal Investigation, told the South Dakota Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Training Commission about the change at the start of the group’s Wednesday meeting in Pierre.
The new four and a half hour ethics session, Prim told the commission, will “talk a little bit about the conditions that are important to you, the things that you all look for, and the expectations you have with new officers as they go out in the field.”
“I think especially with the publicity of the commission’s work over the last couple years, there’s a new emphasis and interest by the officers in the basic class to understand what the commission does,” Prim said.
The commission’s activities have received more media coverage recently. South Dakota Searchlight regularly covers the meetings, as does Bob Mercer of the KELO Capital News Bureau. Austin Goss of The Dakota Scout has also written about contested case hearings.
The commission reviews training program changes, applications for renewed certification for officers who step away from the profession for a while, approves grant requests for training by local departments, works with technical colleges on their criminal justice programs, and reviews complaints of misconduct against officers.
Many complaints are resolved informally, with officers voluntarily ceding their certification or the commission imposing remedial training and reprimands for poor performance. The commission also acts as a jury of sorts in contested hearings, when officers accused of misbehavior defend themselves in proceedings similar to those in a courtroom.