The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is deeply committed to its work with law enforcement.  Among its many contacts with law enforcement, ADL’s Mountain States Regional Office trains cadets at four police academies throughout Colorado. As the largest and premier non-governmental trainer of law enforcement in the country, ADL finds it critical to connect with police recruits and cadets to ensure that information about how to most effectively respond to hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents is communicated as early as possible in their careers.

ADL’s academy training focuses on hate crimes and has been certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, the managing body for the training and certification of all peace officers working for Colorado law enforcement agencies. The four-hour, interactive course has the following goals:

• Understanding the difference between a bias-motivated crime and a bias-motivated incident;
• Understanding the unique nature of bias-motivated crimes and their special impact on the victim and the victim’s community;
• Understanding the reasons why we have hate crimes laws and the legal and constitutional bases for Federal and state hate crime statutes; and
• Understanding the critical role law enforcement plays in identifying and responding to a bias-motivated crime.

 Over the past 10 years, the ADL Mountain States Region has trained 3,863 recruits and sworn members of law enforcement on extremism and hate crimes.  Since the beginning of this year, ADL has taught 112 police cadets and new community resource officers.  In addition, to date in 2013, ADL has trained 164 sworn officers and federal prison employees in Colorado and Wyoming.

If you are a member of law enforcement and would like to arrange training for your academy or department, please call 303-830-7177.