Reference no: EM133106456

The topic is about how important Field Training Officers (FTO) are to law enforcement.

The Field Training Officer plays one of the most vital roles in law enforcement. The FTO is a police officer's first and most prevalent source of education out of the academy. The FTO has the great responsibility of molding and shaping future generations of law enforcement officer. Officers meet their first FTO at the most impressionable stage of their career: fresh out of the academy and anxious to see what the streets hold in store for them. This is a time when the FTO can inspire passion for service and duty, or cultivate spite and anger that can fester and grow for years to come.

Like a small child who mimics his mother's road rage inspired hand gestures, a new recruit is constantly observing and adopting his FTO's behavior, attitudes, and opinions. An FTO who models negative behavior and poor attitude passes those seeds of discontent to the fresh recruit, who will now identify them in every disagreeable decision made by management. The recruit's newly developed bias for negativity is now reinforced every time a new policy comes out.

On the other hand, an FTO who models positive behavior builds within the recruit healthy ways to navigate the ever-changing nature of police work. The recruit who is taught early in their career to maturely deal with the negative aspects of the profession has a far greater chance to grow into a happier, healthier, more well-rounded law enforcement professional.