SOUTHERN MISS STARTS ONE-OF-A-KIND
LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING PROGRAM

GILES was established in 2002 as a part of the Southern Miss Department of Criminal Justice and is the only program of its kind anywhere.

With help from Harrison County Sheriff, George Payne and Dr. Julian Allen, director of the Southern Regional Public Safety Institute at Gulf Park, Dr. Alan Thompson of the Southern Miss Department of Criminal Justice was able to obtain a $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Justice. The grant provides supervision and computer program investigation training to agencies in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi through a two-year pilot program.

A proposal is in the works and will be submitted to expand GILES from a four- state pilot program to a 50-state national program. The strategic vision for GILES' future is to expand the program into other countries.

One participant in the program, Chief Lon Pepper of the Greenville Police Department, sees the benefits for the state of Mississippi, in particular.

"The Southern Miss GILES program will be one of the most beneficial supervisory programs for the law community in Mississippi," said Pepper. "Supervisors will gain first-hand knowledge and education without having their agencies face almost insurmountable budget and manpower obstacles."

FLETC is headquartered in Brunswick, Ga., and for 30 years has trained America's federal officers and agents. It services 76 federal agencies and is the largest law enforcement-training establishment in the country.

The program was spearheaded by Ned Futoran, program manager for the FLETC Distributed Learning Program (DLP) and Dr. Neal Trautman, visiting professor at Southern Miss and director of both GILES and the National Institute of Ethics, which is the largest provider in the nation of police ethics training.

In 2003, GILES and FLECT collaborated their efforts and began to work out the details of the program. "After several meetings, GILES and FLECT agreed that the library of over 2,300 quality Internet courses, combined with the Sergeants Academy model developed by GILES, was a viable, effective and efficient way to deliver

supervision training to officers, even for those agencies who could not send them to leadership seminars," said Trautman.

FLETC has an annual budget of approximately $200 million and is currently undergoing a $144 million expansion for new and improved facilities.

Through the Office of State and Local Training and International programs division, FLETC provides training programs for local, state and foreign law enforcement personnel.

"The offerings are designed to meet training needs not generally available to these agencies and to enhance networking and cooperation throughout the law enforcement community, domestically as well as worldwide," said Trautman.

In order to complete the program, graduates must complete 200 hours of Internet supervision courses through the FLETC's virtual campus Web site, attend three one-and-a-half day seminars presented by GILES instructors, and develop and implement a supervision assignment within their agency.

Futoran hopes the program is a success and is looking forward to the partnership. "It is our intent to do whatever is in our power to support this innovative, visionary program incepted by Trautman to ensure the long-term success and effectiveness of this program," said Futoran. "We believe that it will bring great credit to the university nationally and internationally, as well as to FLETC."

For more information on GILES, call (228) 214-3507.

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