The Police Executive Research Forum found the amount of police officer resignations increased 28.6% from 2019 to 2023, causing a shortage of officers throughout Ohio.
To help combat the shortage, Kent State’s Basic Peace Officer Training Academy will provide more people the opportunity to be an officer with the opening of its Twinsburg location, said Jim Willock, director of the academy.
“When we looked at it … the Twinsburg area is a place where there’s not [a police] academy really close,” Willock said. “There are a ton of police departments.”
Since there is a shortage of officers and police departments are struggling to fill positions, Willock said now is the best time to become an officer.
“Almost every one of our cadets has a full-time job before they leave the academy,” he said.
William Ayres, the dean and chief administrative officer of the Trumbull campus, said there has been an increase in new cadets who are not able to go far for training.
“By opening another location in Twinsburg, we’re making that training available to people who might not be able to make it out to Trumbull,” he said.
The Schwartz Center offered police training, but closed when the number of cadets began decreasing due to the lack of accessibility, Ayres said.
“We were starting to think about how we remain accessible to places that are really closer to Cleveland and Akron,” he said.
Cleveland and Akron were important cities to keep in mind as they employ large numbers of officers, Ayres said.
The location of the Twinsburg academy is not far from the university’s main campus and just off the highway, making it accessible to many people, Willock said.
“It’s only about 15, 20 minutes from our main campus, so people can get up there and go to [the main campus],” he said. “It’s not difficult for them to attend.”
The Twinsburg location will allow cadets to have all of their courses and training in one location, as the facility can accommodate training like regional training sessions for over 50 officers, Willock said.
“Here, you basically walk outside of your classroom down the hall and you’re in the next classroom space to do your physical fitness training or your traffic stop training,” he said.
Since the academy is a designated STAR academy by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission and the Ohio Attorney General’s Officer, the academy holds itself to higher standards compared to other academies, Willock said.
To uphold these standards, the Twinsburg academy will have the same curriculum already in place at the Trumbull academy, he said.
“We have about a 95% graduation rate, which is pretty darn high, I think,” Willock said. “Our final testing rates, our cadets average mid 80s to low 90s on their final exams.”
Lori Singer-Bare, a lecturer for the academy, said the academy will continue to offer courses pertaining to topics like traffic crashes, writing citations and physical training.
Since the academy is STAR designated, it offers additional courses like American Sign Language for law enforcement, she said.
“It gives [cadets] something else to … put in the tool kit, as we say,” Singer-Bare said.
For those interested in applying, Willock said to apply by July 1 for the fall semester, which will consist of regional training. The academy will offer accredited courses the following Spring semester.
He said he hopes individuals who are willing to sacrifice their lives to save people, like alumni Jacob Derbin, apply to the academy.
“[Derbin’s] last dying breath was to warn his fellow officers of the danger of the fact that there was someone there trying to hurt people,” Willock said. “When you look at this field, we need good people, we need people like Jacob that are willing to sacrifice for others.”
Adriana Gasiewski is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].
