UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new Penn State Justice and Safety Institute program, funded by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), is helping teach Pennsylvania’s probation and parole officers the skills they need to keep themselves and the community safe.
The Penn State Justice and Safety Institute has started administering a basic defensive tactics Probation and Parole Training Program for Pennsylvania’s county probation and parole officers. The program instructs new officers to meet their jobs’ demands.
The new training program aims to help keep county probation and parole officers, and the communities they serve, safe, according to JASI program coordinator Patrick Nuzzo, who served as a Westmoreland County probation officer for more than 20 years.
“A probation and parole officer’s job is to ensure individuals under court supervision are complying with the rules of probation and the terms and conditions imposed by the sentencing court. To do so, officers monitor compliance through visits to places of employment and into individuals’ homes,” Nuzzo said. “In those situations, sometimes bad things happen, and officers need to have basic skills to defend themselves in a critical situation.”
PCCD, which offers the course at no cost to county probation and parole offices, contracted with JASI to deliver the training.
“We want to help counties that don’t have a county training program of their own or the financial ability to send officers to an outside training course.” said Nuzzo.
JASI partnered with Temple University, the developer of the program’s curriculum, to deliver the course to meet training standards. The training course includes 40 hours of classroom and physical hands-on training. Topics include proper application and removal of handcuffs, conducting a safe systematic search, proper use of an impact weapon, proper use of pepper spray and discussing and understanding the use of force.
This new initiative is being offered at locations around the state. More information about upcoming training opportunities is available here.
Bernard Smith, Beford County Chief Adult and Juvenile Probation Officer, participated in the inaugural course to gauge the benefit to his officers.
“I think it will benefit every department in the state, even departments with their own defensive tactics program. One of the staples as a trainer is to never think you have all the answers. So, by exposing officers to different methodologies and techniques, you might find you were doing something that was not optimal. There may be a better or safer way,” Smith said. He added that in smaller departments, like his, senior leadership is often relied upon to provide training to new officers, taking time away from other duties.
“I conduct all the training for my officers, while also being chief for two departments. To have the option to send someone to defensive tactics training for a week and have them fully trained in the basic skills they need to perform the job, is a great start,” Smith said.
The course is delivered by a team of highly experienced instructors, consisting of active and retired law enforcement professionals. For Justin Williams, a supervisor for Lancaster County Adult Probation and Parole Services, the knowledge and experience of the instructors was vital in providing new techniques and skills that he planned to take back for his department to consider.
“There are just some things that I haven’t thought about as being a defensive tactics trainer in our county. Seeing this program is a little bit of an eye opener on some of the things that we may be missing and want to implement in our defensive tactics course,” Williams said.
Shelby Anderson, an adult probation officer in Perry County, said her office does not have an in-house defensive tactics trainer. She said she hopes to never be in an unsafe situation on the job, but now has the tools needed to stay safe.
“If that situation were to arise, I think we will be much more prepared and confident in being able to do our jobs properly,” Anderson said. “In the office or in the field, this course is giving us confidence in having the ability to do things the right way.”
JASI is a service of Penn State Outreach.