The La Crosse Police Department, with assistance from the Wisconsin Department of Justice – Training & Standards Bureau, is pleased to announce the hosting of the “Fair and Impartial Policing – Train the Trainer” program running today, July 15th through Friday, July 17th.
The Fair and Impartial Policing perspective, as indicated on the Fair and Impartial Policing website, is rooted in modern social psychology with an emphasis on implicit, or unconscious, biases and how these affect people’s perceptions. This comprehensive program aims to raise the personal awareness amongst sworn officers regarding these biases – what they are, how they are formed, how they present themselves, and most importantly, how to counteract them to create fair and impartial policing methods.
Assistant Chief Rob Abraham, who is attending the program, emphasized, “Implicit bias is a human issue, not just a police issue. But by training our officers how to recognize implicit bias, and then how to use that knowledge to police without those biases affecting their decision-making, we’re helping them to be more effective in policing our community. Policing is about service, justice, and fundamental fairness. This is what our community expects, and that is what the La Crosse Police Department strives to deliver.”
Along with this, the “Train the Trainer” aspect of this program will teach the attendees how to bring this information back to their agencies and train their fellow officers.
The class hosted here in La Crosse is led by Retired Chief Noble Wray of the Madison Police Department and Mary Hoerig, an Inspector with the Milwaukee Police Department. Several agencies from across the state of Wisconsin are represented, including the Appleton, Black River Falls, De Forest, Eau Claire, Greenfield, Madison, Showano, Verona, Tomah VA, and UW-Madison Police Departments; Madison Area Technical College; and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The La Crosse Police Department is represented by Neighborhood Resource Officer Nathan Poke, Detective Sergeant Andrew Dittman, Sergeant Joseph Wiegrefe, and Assistant Chief Robert Abraham, who will then bring this knowledge back and train all members of the La Crosse Police Department on Fair and Impartial Policing.
La Crosse PD Newsroom 