Municipal Police Training Committee Overview

The Municipal Police Training Committee (MPTC) (formerly, the Mass. Criminal Justice Training Council), serves the Commonwealth by establishing training standards and by providing formal training and personal development programs to the professional men and women who serve as municipal police officers. The MPTC is an agency of the Executive Office of Public Safety. Each year the MPTC directly contributes to public safety by making training available for the more than 16,000 municipal police professionals in the Commonwealth.  The scope of training ranges from an intense, 800-hour/20-week Basic Curriculum training program for new municipal police officers to annual professional development training for veteran officers, detectives and supervisors. The Committee also provides a variety of focused professional development training courses for veteran officers as well as training for reserve and intermittent officers. The agency sets the standards for and oversees the delivery of these programs at regional locations throughout the Commonwealth.

The Municipal Police Training Committee was the name of the oversight body as well as the agency itself, until Chapter 196 of the Acts of 2002 established a Municipal Police Training Committee. In essence, this Act changed the name of both the oversight board and the agency from the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Council to the Municipal Police Training Committee, (MPTC). The responsibility of this oversight board is to provide policy guidance to the Agency. Chapter 196 reconfigured the oversight board membership, which will now be comprised of chiefs of police (representing Western, Central, Northeastern and Southeastern Mass. as well as the MBTA), Police officers, the Boston Police Commissioner, State Police Colonel, the Attorney General and one public safety secretary designee.

All such appointments shall be for terms of 3 years, with their successors appointed in a like manner.

The following persons shall be advisory, non-voting members of the committee; the personnel administrator, the commissioner of correction, the commissioner of youth services, the commissioner of probation, the chairman of the parole board, the executive director of the committee on criminal justice, the chief administrative justice for the trial court, the chief justice of the district court department, the commissioner of education, the chairman of the criminal law committee of the MA Bar Association, or their respective designees, and the special agent in charge of the Boston office of the FBI, if consent is given by the Director of that bureau, or his/her designee

The Governor shall appoint five additional advisory, non-voting members of the committee as follows; an administrator of a city or town, a clerk of the superior court, a member of the committee for public counsel services, a sheriff of a county or a former county, a district attorney of a district or their respective designees.

The Committee meets monthly; sub-committees can meet independently to consider specific issues. With the combined efforts from these areas of expertise, the MPTC and its advisory members are constantly working to teach and improve the skills and performance of those professionals who are charged with the immense responsibility of public safety.

In 1964, the Legislature passed the first general law requiring police officers in cities and towns with populations greater that 5,000 to complete a recruit training course. In 1968, an in-service requirement was added. In 1972, the Legislature eliminated the exemption for cities and towns with populations under 5,000 and added a requirement for supervisory training. Over the next 22 years, the responsibilities of the agency have expanded to include a variety of mandated training topics including Rape Investigation, Suicide Prevention, Drunk Driving Enforcement and Hate Crimes Enforcement. In recent years the MPTC has taken a lead training role in some of the most critical social issues of our time. Drugs, domestic and juvenile violence, highway safety and civil rights are just some of the areas which require special attention and training.

The agency staff implements the goals, objectives and directions of the Committee. Headed by the Executive Director, the staff is broken down into two functional areas: Training Academies and Operations and Administrative Support. The focus of the agency staff is to implement comprehensive training programs at the six academy sites operated by the agency and at selected other sites across the Commonwealth. Working closely with municipal police departments of all sizes, the agency has developed a quality delivery system that covers all areas of municipal police training. Currently, training is delivered in four course areas:

Basic Curriculum Municipal Police Training
This is a comprehensive, 800 hour/20-week training program with hands-on and classroom instruction. This training is provided for new municipal police officers and other new officers on a space-available basis.

Professional Development Training for full-time municipal police officers.
This training is provided for patrol officers, detectives and supervisors, including chiefs of police and is often referred to as "In-Service" training.

Focused Professional Development Training
For veteran officers on single topics, which ranges in length from one day to three weeks. This training is provided for patrol officers, detectives and supervisors including chiefs of police, and is often referred to as "specialized" training.

Municipal Police Training for Reserve/Intermittent Police Officers
This 120 hour Training for reserve and intermittent police officers is administered by regional police training organizations under contract with the MPTC at various locations throughout the Commonwealth.  This includes the 120 hour Reserve/Intermittent Training Program; Reserve In-Service and Reserve Specialized Programs.

The agency also approves academies run by municipal police departments statewide. In conjunction with subject matter experts, the MPTC develops materials, sets training standards and has a formal review process involving police professionals who conduct hearings regarding standards and programs.

The MPTC delivers training through a statewide system of regional police academies, municipal police academies, municipal police department training sites, and temporary training sites. The regional training academies are closely affiliated with the municipal police departments in the region that they serve and are responsive to the training requirements of the departments they train.

Funding for municipal police training, (other than Lowell, Boston, Worcester, Springfield and the MBTA), comes from appropriated monies provided by the state legislature and retained revenues from student officer fees. These funds must pay for the infrastructure costs of the agency as well as the training costs for the various programs. Planning is difficult, as the number of officers to be trained changes frequently. This can be due to fluctuations in funding and personnel available for training, both in the municipal departments and in the training agency. The availability and funding of a number of federal police training programs also impacts on the number and types of training offered.

A Student Officer fee of $2,500 is assessed for each student that attends training of municipal police recruits at the MPTC training sites. This fee, which is paid by the municipalities prior to the start of training, may or may not be paid back by the police officer once trained. That is determined between the hiring/sponsoring department and the student officer. The funds collected by the MPTC are placed in a "retained revenue account" and are allocated only to municipal police recruit training costs.