NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Leah Jackson (jacksonl@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

7/15/2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES -The Gulf States Regional Community Policing Institute (GSRCPI) has been awarded a grant of $600,000 from the United States Department of Justice/Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to serve Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama law enforcement with low- or no-cost training. The grant amount is double what the program received last year

The GSRCPI main office is located at Northwestern State University and is administered by the Department of Social Sciences through the criminal justice program. GSRCPI is the highest funded in a network of 31 regional community policing institutes (RCPIs). The institute is dedicated to building partnerships and improving public safety. Training topics have focused on issues such as in-car camera training, homeland defense, domestic violence and protecting children from Internet predators.
Included in the latest grant is $400,000 allotted to all RCPI's in good standing, $100,000 compensation for multi-state RCPIs and an additional productivity bonus of $100,000.

"This will enable us to continue to provide exceptional training to Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana and address some of the infrastructure issues, such as computers and PowerPoint projectors, that were neglected in last year's $300,000 budget," said Daphne Levenson, GSRCPI director.
"The grant is basically to continue what the program is doing," said Joe Morris, coordinator of NSU's criminal justice program. GSRCPI serviced between 5,000 and 6,000 students last year, including those outside the Gulf States Region, Morris said, and was contracted to train officers in the Virgin Island, St. Croix and St. Thomas. With twice the budget, Morris now expects to be able to coordinate twice as many classes in the next year.

According to Levenson, this year's grant will "continue to provide training and technical assistance in current and emerging issues for local law enforcement and the citizens they serve." Some of those issues include community policing, cultural diversity, youth violence prevention and a risk management series that addresses many topics ranging from complaint intake to use of force and racial profiling. Future initiatives may include safety at special events, terrorism awareness, neighborhood watch training and preventing identity theft.

"We have a lot of things we're doing. We're giving quality training and we're being responsive to the people we are training," Morris said. "We expect to continue well into the future and we expect more grants will be coming this way."

For more information on GSRCPOI, contact Levenson at (888) 283-0966 or Morris at (318) 357-357-5499. The GSRCPI website is www.gsrcpi.org.

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