Law enforcement recruits’ fitness requirements may change

Hoping to attract more potential recruits, local law enforcement agencies are studying the possibility of easing fitness requirements for applicants.

In fact, changes have already happened: Applicants for Sedgwick County Jail detention deputy positions now have an extra 10 seconds to complete a series of drills to test their agility.

A Wichita State University criminal justice review panel recommended increasing the time limit from 70 to 80 seconds because data indicated the change would not significantly lower the caliber of applicants, Sedgwick County sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Hein said. The higher time limit has been in place for two months.

“My personal observation is they were right,” Hein said. “The demographics that we’re getting to pass that is not significantly different than what we were getting at 70 seconds.

“If you came in out of shape – grossly out of shape – it didn’t matter if it was 70 or 80, you weren’t going to pass that thing.”

Shortly after his arrival as Wichita police chief, Gordon Ramsay questioned “rigid physical fitness standards” that many law enforcement agencies no longer use. Those standards, Ramsay has said, have cost his department a number of promising applicants.

A recent Supreme Court ruling required law enforcement agencies to have a job task analysis indicating why certain agility tests are included in recruit training if they want liability protection. Hein said he conducted a study to see just what detention deputies and patrol deputies have to do as part of their jobs.

As he was processing recruits for the Wichita-Sedgwick County Law Enforcement Training Academy, Hein found himself wondering why the recruits were required to do certain physical agility tests, such as climbing over walls and through windows or running a mile and a half within a certain time limit.

“When I go to ask people ‘Why do we do it?’ I got ‘I don’t know, that’s just the way we’ve always done it,’ ” Hein said.

A key part of his study, Hein said, was to learn whether the academy needed to update its physical agility tests. The assessment included interviews and volunteers wearing accelerometers while on duty. The devices can tell when the wearer is walking or running.

The results indicated job demands haven’t changed much since 1994, the last time an assessment was done.

“We’re called to do the same things” as deputies 22 years ago did, Hein said.

The study showed a detention deputy walks an average of slightly more than 2 miles a day during an eight-hour shift, with occasional sustained vigorous activity lasting for less than one minute.

Patrol deputies, meanwhile, walk 4.7 miles a day, with occasional bursts of vigorous activity.

While the tasks have largely not changed, Hein said the physical fitness and agility tests for recruits will.

When the training academy moves to WSU’s Innovation Campus in 2018, the outdoor windows and 5-foot walls that are part of the agility course won’t be going along.

“We don’t jump through windows” anymore, Hein said. “Tactically, it’s not sound.”

Hein said he expects the 5-foot wall to “go by the wayside” as well because deputies and officers aren’t encouraged to go over walls that high now in light of what – or who – may be waiting for them on the other side.

Final decisions have yet to be made, however. Hein is awaiting a final report on his study from the university review panel, and then he will present the findings to the sheriff’s office command staff.

Capt. Brent Allred, who oversees the Wichita Police Department’s training bureau, said he’s waiting for the results of the study before reviewing the physical fitness standards for police recruits.

But Allred said he would not be surprised if adjustments were coming. The two law enforcement agencies may even adopt the same standards, he said.

Currently, for instance, police recruits have to be able to run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes or fewer. Recruits for the sheriff’s office do not have to make that run.

Hein said deputies on the job never chase a suspect that far, so it isn’t included in training. But the run has value, he said, because it’s a measure of endurance.

There are other ways to measure endurance, however.

Allred cited a physical fitness course that features a balance beam, stairs and machines that recruits push or pull. Those components are more in line with what law enforcement officers may be asked to do on any given day while on duty.

“When you watch it, you think ‘It’s not that bad,’ ” Allred said. “But when they get done, they go ‘Wow, that’s pretty demanding.’ ”

This story was originally published August 22, 2016 at 11:03 AM with the headline "Law enforcement recruits’ fitness requirements may change."