Program Guides Youth to Law-Related Careers

It may be news to some readers that a call to Boy Scout headquarters in the Valley is a good way for a youngster to find out if he or she has the right stuff for a career in law enforcement.

And what’s more, any boy--or girl--age 14 or older who dials the Western Los Angeles County Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Van Nuys will learn that enrolling in the Exploring Division of the Scouts can provide hands-on experience leading to a career as a police officer, sheriff’s deputy, parole officer, crime-lab technician or related profession.

Recent statistics compiled by the Scouts indicate that nationally, almost one-third of those in law enforcement and ancillary professions have been involved in a Law Enforcement Explorer Scouts program.

January is a good time to call and inquire because a special weekend program, called the Law Enforcement Explorer Academy, conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department, starts its next semester in just a few weeks. Enrollment does not require past or present affiliation with the Boy Scouts.

Leonard Wilson, field director of the Scouts’ Council office in Van Nuys, which serves 65% of the county’s scouting membership, said, “The whole point of our Explorer program is to link Scouting with careers.”

In addition to the highly visible law-enforcement careers as uniformed officers--which account for 20% of those employed in the profession--the Explorer program can introduce young people to the work of crime-lab technicians, investigators, coroners, probation or parole officers and paralegals.

Also, Wilson and other Scouting officials report, teenagers who are considering careers as lawyers have enrolled. (Explorer Scouting also offers programs leading to medical and health careers, firefighting and aviation.)

The first step is simple, according to Wilson: “Call us up and we’ll ask you what the major cross street is near your house--so we can give you the name and number for the Law Enforcement Explorer program nearest you.”

The programs, which involve twice-monthly and sometimes weekly meetings plus various kinds of volunteer service, are operated out of police and sheriff’s stations in the Valley and nearby cities.

The Explorer program is different at each location but may include training in criminal justice and law, report writing and field procedures, anti-drug classes, crisis intervention and first aid. Common to all programs is an application procedure--to determine if a youth is of good character and has a passing record at school.

Once a young person joins, he or she becomes an Explorer Recruit. The next step is the Explorer Academy program, which is conducted on weekends at the LAPD’s main training facility in Elysian Park. The next available session runs Saturdays and Sundays from Feb. 22 to May 1, and there’s another session that commences in August and runs into November.

“Academy admission requires a letter of referral from the applicant’s school containing a recommendation and evidence of a 2.0 grade-point average,” said officer Angela Stewart, spokeswoman for the program. “And while they’re in our program, they have to stay out of trouble at school.”

Physical endurance tests are administered prior to and several times during the three-month program, and there are written exams on the law enforcement courses.

Enrollment at these academy sessions over the years has risen steadily to about 100 each spring and each summer. About half the kids come from the Valley nowadays, and recent enrollees, it appears, are not slackers.

Stewart reports that, despite a quite rigorous program, almost as demanding as full-scale police academy training, the Explorer Academy’s drop-out rate is going down, not up. This past fall, for the first time, Stewart says, the graduation rate was “everybody.”

Stewart and Wilson see this as a reflection of the job market. Explorer Law Enforcement experience can give young people a better chance of initiating a career, perhaps leading to an appointment as a full-fledged police cadet or to studies in a related field.

DETAILS

* FYI: For information about the Law Enforcement Exploring program of the Boy Scouts of America offered in the Valley--open to boys and girls 14 and older--call (818) 785-8700.