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Commencement has arrived in Louisville for two administrative staff members within the Bartlesville Police Department.

Bartlesville Police Chief Tracy Roles and Captain Kevin Ickleberry (both pictured below) are graduating from the 13 week Administrative Officer's Course at the Southern Police Institute (SPI) in Louisville, Kentucky. Roles says they made the most of their time there, but they are ready to be home. He says the course challenged the standard model of policing.

Community dictates how policing is done. Chief Roles says this is true because the police are an extension of the community, and vice versa. Roles says they have to embrace that theory and really listen to what Bartlesville's citizens want and expect from them. He says challenging the traditional way of policing is how they will be successful. 

Take investigations for example. In traditional police investigations, Chief Roles says they investigate who committed the crime; they investigate the person or people that committed the crime. Where they fall short, according to the data, is that they do not look into or investigate the area where a crime occurred to determine if there is something there that make it conducive to make a crime happen there. Chief Roles says this can include crime generators/attractors, and environmental factors that could make it easier to commit crimes in a certain area. He says many agencies could do better at checking for these issues in order to reduce the true causes of crime.

Finding other ways to effectively prevent future crimes was at the forefront of the course work Chief Roles and Capt. Ickleberry went through. Chief Roles says they also learned how they could reduce the fear of crime while preventing crime for occurring. He says the coursework was very thought provoking. 

When Chief Roles and Capt. Ickleberry first arrived at the Southern Police Institute in August, they were told that the course would be like an airplane ride. Chief Roles says they were told that taking off and landing the plane would be the hardest thing to do. He says they were able to navigate the obstacles almost perfectly during their time in Louisville.

Representatives from 18 or 20 different states interacted with the people at SPI over the 13 week time period. Chief Roles says they spoke with an equally amount of police agencies from as far west as Nevada and to the east to as far south as Florida. He says they got to learn valuable lessons and what has and has not worked in each of their respected communities.

Chief Roles says they hope to send people to this course on a regular basis so they can build a foundation of knowledge that only can be provided at the Southern Police Institute.

Roles and Capt. Ickleberry will officially graduate on Thursday. They will return to Bartlesville on Friday.