Wednesday, July 22, 2009

LEMIT - Where Academia and Practitioners Meet

by David Webb

Throughout the year thousands of law enforcement professionals attend training and personal development courses at the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas (LEMIT). Much of the course content is delivered by Sam Houston State University faculty from the College of Criminal Justice. But that is not where the interface stops.

  • New courses, that address tomorrows issues, have to be designed, and this is where LEMIT leverages the academic excellence offered at the College by funding research programs such as the Major City Chiefs Initiative led by Dr. Larry Hoover. In this way, the results of meaningful research in the field are ploughed back into the content of newly designed courses.
  • Evaluation is an important assessment component at LEMIT. Internally, LEMIT's research specialist, Dr. Hyeyoung Lim, recently undertook a major evaluation of the flagship Leadership Command College program. Additionally, Dr. Holly Hutchins of the University of Houston was contracted to undertake a study on learning transfer, utilizing the Learning Transfer Systems Inventory (LTSI).
  • LEMIT is a great resource for researchers, with law enforcement officers of differing ranks passing through its portals, most of whom are very amenable to responding to survey instruments and being engaged in trials and experiments.
  • LEMIT is also a great facility for student workers and researchers. LEMIT employs over twenty students at the undergraduate and graduate level who are afforded the opportunity to work and undertake research in a professional environment.

This summer there will be two new projects undertaken by doctoral candidates. Ms. Ling Wu will develop a model to identify salient factors to be considered by police departments when their cities annex new areas that considerably increase the policing requirement.

Ms. Ji Seun Sohn will be undertaking an audit of the data and resources held by LEMIT throughout its sixteen programs, and identify ways for these to be made available to faculty at the College for research purposes.