During my 11 weeks in the New Jersey State Police Academy in Sea Girt, N.J., I was taught many of the basic skills that would serve me well during my years on the street. My department chose to send its recruits to the state police academy because it was a live-in academy that had a well-earned reputation for weeding out recruits who couldn’t survive the rigors of the stressful environment the state police created. It was a tough academy with a wash-out rate of approximately 25 percent, but if you survived, you graduated with the street survival skills that would hopefully keep you alive.

…{+}

The rest of this article is available to premium members only.
Login or Become a member