Captain Tim Scanlan of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and William Thornton Jr., chairman of the department of criminal justice, have joined together to create a program that would allow police officers to pursue a college education without worrying how these officers would be able to afford Loyola’s cost of attendance while still working a job to provide for their families.

“A number of people who go into public service are enticed by law enforcement,” Thornton said, “but the most of them do not make large amounts of money. It’s tough for an officer to enroll in Loyola and have a job and a family because the tuition here is expensive.”

With the approval of the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, and the administration, the criminal justice department, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and New Orleans Police Department have partnered together to make Scanlan and
Thornton’s visions become a reality. Loyola approved this program with hopes of encouraging the importance of higher education in the police department.

“Loyola hopes that these officers will leave having the Loyola university stamp of a higher education. Law enforcement is a profession like any other occupation so its officers should have a higher education of learning. In addition to the knowledge they learn from the different courses offered,” Thornton said, “we hope that they will acquire an enhanced awareness of social justice and the importance of ethical and moral concerns as they go about their jobs in the public.”   

The program allows officers seeking the chance to earn their bachelor’s degree in the field of criminal justice the opportunity to attend Loyola at a lower cost. Officers enrolled in this program will receive a 60 percent discounted rate on course fees with an additional reimbursement of 25 percent of the total cost of a four year education provided by the sheriff’s office. As of now, the program is only offering this discount to those in pursuit of bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with hopes to expand in the future.

The sheriff’s department has also created a satellite campus on the West Bank to familiarize the officers with a college type setting that will prepare them before beginning classes at Loyola.

“It gives the guys the benefit of going back to school and having the ability to go into a familiar surrounding with people who they have common interests which allows them to begin the Loyola process,” Scanlan said.

The JPSO law enforcement program began in January 2008 and has about 40 officers who have enrolled and have begun working towards receiving their bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. The NOPD program is currently taking applications from both women and men with intentions of starting the program for the first time in the spring semester of 2009.

For an officer to be selected, they have to meet Loyola’s admission as well as proof they are a part of the JPSO or the NOPD.

Once that is approved, the last thing officers have to do is fill out an application within the department of criminal justice to receive the tuition reduction.
The participants take three to four courses but no more than twelve hours a semester. The average amount of time that it would take for an officer to complete this program and receive a degree normally is between four to six years.

“The beauty of the program,” Scanlan said, “is that the officers start out with 18 hours of credit; they can test out of an additional 12 hours and get transfer credits so some start with 30 hours allowing them to receive their degrees in four years.

Thornton believes that police officers who have a college education and a degree in criminal justice allowing them to be an overall better officer. Thornton said, “Research shows that police officers with higher degrees tend to be better officers because they are more in tune with the people they work in communities. They have fewer citizen complaints, fewer deadly force accidents and there is a different relationship between higher education quality of policing.”

Scanlan said that he would like to see the program expand from the limited classes at the satellite campus.

“The more deputies and police officers that get involved, the more we can expand the classes. Also hopefully we can work toward a master’s degree program in the future,” he said.

Craig Malveaux can be reached at [email protected].