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Ohio's Attorney General Wants Minimum Standards For Police Officers

Jo Ingles

Ohio’s Attorney General is calling for new pre-certification standards for peace officer applicants. And as Statehouse correspondent Jo Ingles reports, he also wants more training for existing police officers.

Mike DeWine wants the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission to make sure all incoming academy candidates have a high school diploma or GED; pass a drug screening, a psychological exam, and a polygraph test; are physically fit and have not been convicted of sex offenses. He says these are things that are not uniformly done now.

Credit Jo Ingles
This board shows the minimum standards DeWine wants for police officers in Ohio

“When someone is a police officer, there ought to be certain basic things and one basic thing is what is the pre-certification to become a police officer and another basic thing is how many continuing hours are you taking every single year?”

DeWine wants all Ohio police officers to have a minimum of 20 hours of continuing education training each year. Some of these measures would still need legislative approval.

Contact Jo Ingles at jingles@statehousenews.org.