Community Policing Wins Grant

Sat., Feb. 24, 1996

Gita Sitaramiah Staff writer

Federal officials awarded a Washington State University institute more than $590,000 to help Northwest communities adopt community policing.

Bill Gray, dean of the WSU campus in Spokane, said the reputation of community policing in the city and county helped the Washington State Institute for Community Oriented Policing win the federal money.

“What we plan on doing is capitalizing on the experience in Spokane,” Gray said.

The institute is a partnership between the school and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and the state Criminal Justice Training Commission.

The institute was established to conduct training for police organizations and their communities, provide technical assistance and evaluate the results of community-oriented policing.

The U.S. Department of Justice award to the institute of $593,508 is one of 14 training awards nationally, totaling more than $1.5 million.

The institute’s first phase of training will be an organizational assessment of policing in cities throughout Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Alaska.

The money will be used for training sessions with an emphasis on organizational preparation to begin community-oriented policing, Gray said.

Some of the training could be done via interactive telecommunications networks, such as the university’s Washington Higher Education Telecommunications System.

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