LORAIN, Ohio — Hands-on experience is crucial in any field, especially in law enforcement. That’s why, for years, the Lorain Police Department has partnered with Bowling Green State University to provide exactly that for criminal justice students. But this training is doing more than just inspiring students.
For Lily Perry, working in criminal justice has always been a clear path, with dreams of joining a major crimes unit or the DART team. Today, she got a taste — a hands-on one — of what that criminal justice path might really look like.
“When people think of it, they mostly think of law enforcement. But so far, I have viewed that there is much more than that in the field,” said Perry, a BGSU freshman criminal justice student.
It’s all part of BGSU’s Criminal Justice Learning Community Field Experience — a program hosted by the Lorain Police Department in partnership with Bowling Green State University.
“When we bring the students out here, they're able to apply what they're learning in the classroom to a real world situation,” said Catherine Pape, director of the criminal justice learning at BGSU.
The program started four years ago with about 30 criminal justice students. Now, they’re working with their biggest group yet: 60 students participating in a series of police exercises, including building clearing and traffic crash reconstruction.
“They actually have to take measurements and reconstruct this crash to determine what happened,” said Cpt. Jacob Morris with Lorain PD.
Students also observed SWAT and K9 demonstrations and saw how drones are used in policing.
“They see all of the SWAT equipment. They see all of the toys the SWAT team uses. They get to kind of handle them, experience them, ask questions about them,” said Morris.
The goal isn’t just to inspire students — it’s also to build long-term relationships, with hopes of boosting recruitment, especially at a time when law enforcement agencies across the country are seeing record-low staffing levels.
“As these young folks get closer and closer to graduation, they're going to have a certain fondness and a we hope to culture that love of the servant field, right? They're potentially going to enter a field where they're serving their community,” said Morris.
And it’s not just the students who are learning — the officers are inspired, too.
“It feels great to be able to give back to policing, and to be able to give back to the criminal justice programs,” said Morris.
Students like Lily are now gaining a clearer picture of their future careers — and maybe even of the departments they might one day work for.
“I love not only that, it's helping the community members and citizens and society in general,” said Lily.
