Overview:
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Located within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) is the largest law enforcement training center in the country. It provides teaching and vocational instruction to a wide range of law enforcement and security personnel at the federal, state and local government level. Demand for FLETC’s services has risen dramatically in the wake of 9/11, prompting the center’s leadership to add a dozen new programs to combat terrorism.
History:
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During the late 1960s, law enforcement studies indicated it was time for the federal government to establish a centralized training program for federal law enforcement officers and agents. With no such center in place, the quality of training varied from agency to agency, thanks to inadequate facilities and duplication of effortcaused by each agency independently training its own personnel. Congress then acted to create for the first time a program that would address the training needs of all federal law enforcement operations.
In 1970 the Consolidated Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (CFLETC) was established as a bureau of the Department of the Treasury and began training operations in temporary facilities in Washington, DC. It would be five years before the new training center would find a permanent home. Originally planned for the Washington, DC area, CFLETC’s permanent home was stalled by a three-year construction delay which prompted Congress to request that surplus federal installations be surveyed to determine if one could serve as the permanent site.
In 1975, the former Glynco Naval Air Station near Brunswick, GA, was selected as a permanent site for the training center, which was renamed the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). Since then Glynco has served as the headquarters and main campus for FLETC. Over the years the center has expanded with the creation of satellite campuses in Artesia, NM, Charleston, SC, Cheltenham, MD, and Gabarone, Botswana.
When the Department of Homeland Security was established in 2003, FLETC was formally transferred from the Treasury Department to DHS along with some 20 other agencies. The move reflected the centrality of the FLETC’s mission to support all law enforcement and security efforts conducted not only by the federal government but also by state and local governments and even foreign nationals.
What it Does:
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Part of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) is the largest of its kind in the country, providing teaching and vocational instruction to a wide range of law enforcement and security personnel at the federal, state and local government level. Graduating approximately 50,000 students annually, FLETC helps to train officers and agents from more than 80 federal agencies plus numerous state and local governments. The center also trains international police in selected advanced programs.
Approximately one-third of the instructors at FLETC are permanent staff. The remaining instructors are federal officers and investigators on short-term assignment from their parent organizations or recently retired from the field. Training programs offered by FLETC, all of which are found in the center’s catalog, vary from core instruction required by many government agencies to highly specialized training for select security officials. Basic training programs are geared towards criminal investigators, uniformed police and land management police, among others.
Among its many specialized training programs, FLETC now offers 12 specialty areas geared towards combating terrorism - an addition that has come about only since 9/11. Those anti-terrorism programs are:
- Commercial Vehicle Counterterrorism Training Program
- Crisis Management Training Program - which includes a course on how to deal with “Animal Environmental Rights Extremists”
- Critical Incident Response Training Program
- Critical Infrastructure Protection Training Program
- Fundamentals of Terrorism Training Program - which includes the courses “Implications of Jihad” and “Assassinations”
- Land Transportation Antiterrorism Training Program
- OPSEARIONS Security for Public Safety Agencies Counterterrorism Training Program
- Physical Security Training Program
- Protective Service Operations Training Program
- Suicide Bomber Mitigation Training Program - which includes the course “Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber”
- Weapons of Mass Destruction Training Program
Training Facilities
FLETC is headquartered at Glynco, GA, near the port city of Brunswick, halfway between Savannah, GA, and Jacksonville, FL. In addition to Glynco, the FLETC operates two other residential training sites in Artesia, NM, and Charleston, SC. The FLETC also operates an in-service re-qualification training facility in Cheltenham, MD, for use by agencies in the Washington, DC, area. The FLETC has oversight and program management responsibility for the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Gaborone, Botswana, and supports training at other ILEAs in Hungary and Thailand.
Glynco - Glynco is situated on 1,600 acres with classrooms, dormitories and administrative and logistical support structures. Additionally, the site has 18 firearms ranges and a sprawling complex of driver training ranges, a physical techniques facility, explosives range and a fully functional mock port of entry.
Artesia - The Artesia Training Division is responsible for specialized training programs for the US Border Patrol, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Transportation Security Administration, among others. Basic and advanced training programs are conducted for the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs under the auspices of the Indian Police Academy. Specialized training programs for instructors are also conducted at Artesia, covering such areas as driver training, firearms instruction, physical fitness training and defensive tactics training.
Charleston - Appropriately situated on the Cooper River in Charleston, SC (the fourth busiest container port in the US), Charleston specializes in Maritime Law Enforcement and Port Security Training. Basic and advanced training programs are conducted in concert with the US Coast Guard, Maritime Law Enforcement Training Academy and the US Courts Probation and Pretrial Services Academy.
Cheltenham - This FLETC facility trains more than 24,500 federal, state and local law enforcement officers in the metropolitan Washington, DC area in firearms and driver operations training as well as other subjects.
FLETC International - This section of FLETC consists of the International Training and Technical Assistance (ITT) division and involvement with the International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA), established by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The ITT division is geared towards supporting US foreign policy goals. It does so by training police forces in US-friendly nations and working with the Department of Homeland Security and other US law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism and other transnational crimes. Through its ITT section, FLETC helps with training at ILEAs in Hungary, Thailand, Botswana and El Salvador. Aside from providing instructors at each ILEA, FLETC also has an assigned director at ILEA San Salvador and ILEA Gaborone. These directors are responsible for the facility and management of all academic areas of the academy.
In addition to its training facilities, FLETC maintains a Washington Operations office where the director, deputy director and other senior officials are based.
Where Does the Money Go:
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FLETC’s most important stakeholders are its “Partner Organizations” which consist of other federal agencies that send their personnel to one of FLETC’s training sites for instruction. Many of these agencies, according to FLETC, have transferred portions or all of their law enforcement training operations to one of the FLETC’s permanent sites. Partner Organizations are said to have input regarding training issues and functional aspects of FLETC. Agencies take part in curriculum review and development conferences and help develop policies and directives.
Currently, there are a total of 85 federal offices that send employees to FLETC for training, including elements of the CIA, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service. All 85 Partner Organizations are:
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense
- Department of Education
- Department of Energy
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Department of Homeland Security
- Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Federal Air Marshal Service
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Office of Security
- Federal Protective Service
- Office of Inspector General
- Transportation Security Administration
- U.S. Border Patrol
- U.S. Coast Guard
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- U.S. Secret Service
- Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Office of Inspector General
- Protective Services Division
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Justice
- Department of Labor
- Department of State
- Department of Transportation
- Department of the Treasury
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Legislative Branch
- Judicial Branch
- Independent Agencies, Government Corporations and Commissions
- Amtrak Police, National Railroad Passenger Corporation
- Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Security
- Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General
- Corporation for National and Community Service, Office of Inspector General Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division
- Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Inspector General
- General Services Administration, Office of Inspector General
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Inspector General
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Inspector General
- Office of Personnel Management, Office of Inspector General
- Railroad Retirement Board, Office of Inspector General
- Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General
- Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General
- Tennessee Valley Authority, Office of Inspector General
- Tennessee Valley Authority Police
- U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General
- U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General
- Quasi-Official Agencies
Controversies:
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FLETC Struggling with Demand in post-9/11 World
In 2003 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report citing concerns with FLETC’s ability to keep up with rising training demands by federal agencies trying to better prepare for terrorist threats. Thousands of new jobs in Transportation Safety, Customs, Border Patrol, Marshal’s Service, Secret Service and more than 70 other agencies - along with increased demand from state and local departments - have turned the training center into an around-the-clock operation. Many of the 340 instructors work 14-hour shifts.
GAO investigators pointed out that the center has struggled before to keep up with rising demand for training, such as the 1990s when increases in the size of the US Border Patrol led to more students in FLETC programs. Most recently, other federal offices have sought out increased training services by FLETC, and coupled with what GAO called the “post-terrorist attack security environment,” the GAO questioned whether the center was up to the task.
“The current influx has raised concerns also about the relevance, quality and timeliness of training provided by FLETC,” read the report. “These concerns, in turn, have prompted some federal law enforcement agencies that use FLETC for their basic training to periodically consider establishing their own facilities.”
FLETC has longed contended that it saves the federal government money by providing a centralized training program for other agencies to use instead of building and running their own training facilities. GAO pointed out in its report that FLETC officials could not provide numbers that backed up their cost-savings argument.
GAO Report on FLETC (PDF)
Recruits flood federal 'boot camp' (by Kevin Johnson, USA Today)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
- Comments
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Founded: 1970
Annual Budget: $288.6 million
Employees: 1,056
Official Website: http://www.fletc.gov/
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
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