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State Police Adds Full-Time Community Service Troopers to Enhance Community Outreach and Engagement
Specially Trained Troopers Receive New Training for Engaging with Youth
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 5, 2024
DIMONDALE, MICH. In a move that underscores the importance of community engagement and outreach, Col. James F. Grady II, director of the Michigan State Police (MSP), today announced the establishment of 18 full-time community service trooper (CST) positions.
CSTs are troopers who have received training in public speaking, teaching, special programming and community engagement who spend their time working alongside community organizations, schools and other law enforcement agencies to build community support for prevention and public safety efforts.
“The role of a community service trooper is to serve as a local MSP point of contact when it comes to crime prevention and community service programming, with the goal of strengthening police-community relations,” said Grady. “Our CSTs are fully immersed and engaged within their communities, serving residents of all ages in many ways, including through education, presentations, mentoring and participation in a wide variety of community organizations and community events.”
All CSTs are trained to teach the TEAM curriculum, which stands for Teaching, Educating and Mentoring. TEAM is a school-based, law-related curriculum taught in schools to students in grades K – 12.
At a special training today, the CSTs were learning to facilitate a new curriculum for K - 12 students called Juvenile Justice Jeopardy™, which was created by the organization, Strategies for Youth of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Juvenile Justice Jeopardy™ is a gamified learning program that promotes group conversation while challenging and correcting misconceptions students may have about the legal system and policing. Topics covered include state rules for youths such as attending school, truancy and what their rights are during contact with law enforcement, as well as various juvenile laws and many other hot topics in schools including bullying, cyberbullying, sexting and vaping. The ultimate goals of the Juvenile Justice Jeopardy program are to prevent youth from entering the criminal justice legal system and to promote overall student safety.
CSTs will begin offering this program in Michigan schools this fall.
Sixteen of eighteen full-time CST positions are currently filled. The MSP first established the CST role in 2011. In recent years, it has not always been a full-time role. This is the first time the position reports centrally to MSP’s Grants and Community Services Division for statewide coordination.
“Because community outreach and community service are core functions of modern policing, I felt it was important to return the CST position to a full-time role that reports up through our Grants and Community Services Division. While each CST is assigned a geographic area of responsibility, they can be called upon to assist with events and programs anywhere in Michigan,” Grady added.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Sgt. Don Stewart, GCSD Prevention Services Section, [email protected], 248-388-0852
NOTE: Video of Colonel Grady talking about the new CST positions can be viewed here.
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