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State DOJ working to revamp law enforcement training curriculum

North Carolina soon could be teaching its future police officers about 68 terms for “gender identity and expression” as part of their law enforcement training, a new pilot program document reveals.

The proposed curriculum change to the state Justice Academy’s Basic Law Enforcement Training program comes from the North Carolina Department of Justice, The Carolina Journal reports.

The state agency is in the process of revising the officer training program, with the new curriculum slated to be implemented in 2025.

However, some of the potential changes revealed in a pilot program this spring have raised eyebrows.

For example, a “Course Management Guide” for instructors recommends the Healthline article “68 Terms That Describe Gender Identity and Expression” as a source of information for lessons about hate crimes, according to the document, first obtained by The Carolina Journal.

“This hardly seems like a productive use of time for police trainees and their instructors,” Jon Guze, a senior fellow in legal studies at the John Locke Foundation, told the news outlet in response to the article.

Guze said the guide also recommends two biased organizations, the Human Rights Campaign and the Anti-Defamation League, as sources for hate crimes information.

“Neither of those sources can be regarded as objective. On the contrary, both have been credibly accused of being biased,” he said.

The new curriculum has not been finalized yet; it will be part of an expanded police training program. Currently, North Carolina law enforcement training lasts 16 weeks, but, starting next year, it will expand to 21 weeks, according to the report.

The Carolina Journal reports more:

With over 200 additional hours in the program and expansion to 39 topic areas, most of the lesson plans are increasing in required hours. This includes course orientation (+6), ethical problem solving (+12), communication and de-escalation (+16), compliance and control techniques (+24), driver training (+8), firearms (+48), and criminal investigations (+6).

While the Justice Academy course is expanding significantly, key areas like constitutional law saw a reduction in material despite the overall increase.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion topics have been included in a number of law enforcement training programs in recent years.

Last year, for example, the University of Colorado Boulder Police Department began training its officers to use inclusive language in emergency alerts and suspect descriptions The College Fix reported.

Delaware State University also announced plans to implement sensitivity training for campus police last year in response to student protests, according to The Fix.

MORE: Berkeley Law event touts defunding police, ‘decarceration’

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