Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lincoln High offers 80-hour course to be a detention officer
LINCOLN — Lincoln High School is the first school in the state to offer a jail standards course for its juniors and seniors to give them the opportunity to be certified as a detention officer and apply for a job at age 18.
The students are taking the same 80-hour course that new employees with the Washington County Detention Center take for their certification, except detention staff is teaching the class at the high school one hour each day, Tuesday-Friday.
“The kids have loved it because their teachers are from the sheriff’s office,” said Laurie Smith, director of the school’s Emergency Services Professionals Academy. “This is a career and they can work their way up in the agency without a bachelor’s degree.”
The main instructors for the class are Lt. Michael Arnold, Lt. Amanda Arnold, Lt. Brian Atchley and Sgt. Misty Walton.
Michael Arnold said the course started Jan. 7 with eight students. They will complete the 80-hour course by May 17 and then be presented with the jail standards test. If they pass, this certification is valid for three years.
The course includes ethics, CPR, segregation, report writing, courtroom testimony, handcuffing, search of a person, taking fingerprints and search of a jail cell.
“It’s exciting to give the younger generation a different view of what a detention officer really is and what we do,” Arnold said. “They get to ask us questions, and we try to give them as much information as we can. I think it gives a better perspective of what we do.”
Arnold said Smith contacted him asking if there was anything the detention center could do to help her students. He told her about the jail standards course. The school then received approval from the State Corrections Board to offer the course in partnership with Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Arnold has been with the detention center for 12 years and said he has stayed at the center because he is a “people person,” and believes he has the people skills to work at a detention center with more than 700 people.
“I get to interact with inmates, officers, everyone,” he said.
Arnold also leads public tours, helps with in-house training and works with youth leadership programs and other community programs.
“I like getting to work with the public,” he said.
The number of inmates changes but this day in February, the center had 758 inmates in the center, according to Arnold. The center has 150 positions in the detention center but also has other positions for transporting inmates and community service. At the time, the center had 34 open positions.
Smith said the jail standards course is one of the components for the criminal justice pathway that is part of the high school’s Career Technical Education program. Other classes in the criminal justice pathway are introduction to criminal justice, foundations of law enforcement and EMR or emergency medical responders.
“It’s eye opening,” she said. “You can follow the criminal justice pathway and get a job at 18 years of age, not wait until you are 21. Criminal justice offers many options, such as dispatch, intake officer and law enforcement. I think it is finally connecting to open their eyes and see there are a lot of options.”
At age 18, she said a Lincoln graduate can make $19.01 per hour as a detention officer for an 86-hour, 14-day pay period and receive benefits, such as holiday and vacation pay and sick leave. To become a certified law enforcement officer, the minimum age is 21.
This gives students the opportunity to start in the detention center at 18 and move into law enforcement at 21 if they want, Smith said.
Dalton Green, a senior in the course, transferred from Siloam Springs to Lincoln for the school’s Emergency Services Professionals Academy. Green said he initially was interested in being a firefighter but now is leaning toward working as a detention officer and being a firefighter on a parttime basis.
“I would like to help people try to get their lives back on track when they get out,” Green said.
Another senior in the course, Kristen Rhine, said law enforcement has always interested her. Rhine plans to go to college with an interest in environmental science and then possibly work as a park ranger.
Smith said she hopes that other school districts will consider offering the course for their students.