Training is underway at the Massachusetts State Police Academy with a new set of reforms officials are describing as “major” following the death of a trainee in 2024. It will be the first class to undergo training under the new guidelines.
The changes come after 25-year-old Enrique Delgado-Garcia died following a boxing exercise at the academy just over two years ago.
That incident sparked calls for changes in training, and led to the indictments of four staffers at the academy. An independent report from the International Association of Chiefs of Police found several “systemic and cultural challenges” at the academy, including frequent leadership changes, trainee attrition that exceeded national and peer-state averages and an overreliance on stress exposure.
That report listed 103 recommendations. State Police say they have implemented 22 of those so far, with nine more underway. The plan is to eventually address them all.
“The Massachusetts State Police Academy has a unique responsibility to impart the knowledge, skills, judgment, and leadership trainees need to meet the demands of modern policing and serve the public with honor and professionalism,” Colonel Geoffrey Noble, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, said in a statement. “We recognize that implementing these recommendations requires a sustained commitment to raising standards and challenging longstanding practices
At the 93rd Recruit Training Troop, which started Monday after a delay to allow more time to implement reforms, the title of drill instructor will no longer be used. State Police have also established comprehensive graduation standards to provide a better framework to evaluate who is ready to graduate.
The academy is also implementing concussion awareness and response training, and has daily periods dedicated to rest, recovery and personal care. It’s also building out a leadership team and is working with PFM Group Consulting LLC as an independent evaluator to assess progress on reforms.
“Supporting the men and women who serve on the front lines means ensuring they receive the training, leadership, and resources they need to do their jobs safely and effectively,” said Gina Kwon, secretary of Public Safety and Security, in a statement. “These reforms are an important investment in the next generation of State Troopers, the communities they serve, and public safety across the Commonwealth.”
Shea Cronin, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan College at Boston University, said that police academies across the country have been wrestling with how to match up their training with what it means to be a good officer. That means asking themselves, “are we modeling the right kinds of behaviors and mindsets and skills that we need to have our officers demonstrate when they get into the field?” Cronin said.
Cronin said a lot of police academies are moving away from an emphasis on a “paramilitary stress” model. He said if the stress that’s being modeled in training isn’t connected to relevant situations and context, it’s not a true replication of what the officers might experience in the field.
“In so much of policing, there are examples of high-stress situations, but there’s different kinds of stress than just having a drill instructor yelling at you for your failure in some kind of training situation, right?” Cronin said. “Very different than what we’re thinking about when officers are in the field interacting with members of the public on a routine basis.”
