Courtesy-ISA
FRANKLIN, Ind. – Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess announced recently that the Indiana Sheriffsâ Association (ISA) is again awarding college scholarships to qualified high school seniors or college students pursuing a degree in criminal justice studies. The $750 scholarships will be given to about 40 qualifying Hoosier students.
The applicant must be an Indiana resident, be a current member of the association or a dependent child or grandchild of a member of the association, attend an Indiana college or university, major in a law enforcement field, and enroll as a full-time student (12 hours).
Applications are available from your high school counselor, the Johnson County Sheriffâs Office, or at the ISA website, www.indianasheriffs.org.
Jan 12, 2021 / 09:00 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) Could major changes be coming for Indiana law enforcement officers? A committee of state lawmakers Tuesday took a big step forward.
The panel of lawmakers advanced a proposal to create guidelines to help police agencies in hiring and training and to create other measures to increase trust from the public.
“It’s historic,” said state Rep. Greg Steuerwald, a Republican from Avon, who spent the past six months conversing with various law-enforcement agencies before writing
House Bill 1006. It would require a state law-enforcement training board to establish mandatory de-escalation training guidelines.
“They said ‘Listen. We have 99.9% wonderful, great people and we do not want the 0.1% who do not act accordingly, to cause us issues. So, let’s deal with that. ”
The bill would also establish a procedure for the law enforcement training board to decertify officers who commit misconduct, and would ease the sharing of officers’ employment records between police departments, thus helping to identify “bad actors” and keep them from moving jobs.
A bipartisan bill aimed at increasing police accountability and enacting criminal justice reform received early support from Indiana's legislators, law enforcement leaders and community groups Tuesday, following calls for action from the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus.
Credit Lauren Chapman / IPB News
Legislation debated in an Indiana Senate committee Thursday would ban local governments from ever decreasing police or fire department budgets, unless there’s a revenue shortfall.
The measure is a response to the debate raised in 2020 over “defunding” the police.
Sen. Mike Bohacek (R-Michiana Shores) said his bill aims to eliminate the possibility that any decrease to public safety funding can ever become a “political bargaining chip.”
“This is such an important issue that we do not want to allow that to be something that can be threatened or can be used as a threat or as just a form of public discourse,” Bohacek said.