Crime prevention course offered at CWC in June, taught by National Association of School Resource Officers Executive Director

RIVERTON, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) -

The Shoshoni Police Department along with CWC Campus Security are co-hosting a community course in June. It aims to make participants aware of potential unsafe practices used and provides solutions, to combat those unsafe situations.

This is the first year it’s being offered in Fremont County, and the law enforcement officers who initiated it shared how it can help keep kids safer in school.

School Resource Officer for FCSD #24 and CWC Campus Security Officer Cody Myers stated, “A lot of times we start looking out and we start trying to look too hard: what can we do, what can we fix, and there’s a lot of things that we can do within a building, a school, on the grounds, to make the school safer.”

The course is called CPTED, or Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It helps employees, officers, and administrators find the areas on campuses that could be safer and shows them how to put those practices into action.

One section of the course addresses how safety can be achieved with a component as simple as the right lighting. Officer Myers added, “I know at one school, they put a certain light that people didn’t like so it kept them away from that area.” The officers suspect budget cuts have kept some registrants from signing up for this course, but they said the knowledge gained and applied, could save a life.

“I’ve had the opportunity at a national conference to speak to several moms from Sandy Hook. When you get up and listen to those moms speak about their kids, and their children whose lives were lost that day, there’s no price you can put on that, none at all.”

Officer Myers suggested that not everything learned at training requires a costly solution. He described a situation in a school in which people were gathering in a certain outdoor corner of campus, who were acting wrongfully. A creative solution helped combat the problem.

“He would go out and pour the pop on the ground and it started attracting some bees and ants so the kids would go back, and it just kept them away from there. Sometimes it’s not the money type of thing, it’s thinking outside the box a little bit,” explained Officer Myers.

The National Association of School Resource Officer (NASRO) Executive Director Mo Canady will be instructing the course, which can also be beneficial for people responsible for designing buildings, to design safety elements into them.

Director of Central Wyoming College Campus Security, Chuck Carr stated, “If you work in a school or you’re an architect or possibly a legislator or a councilman, a commissioner, where you’re involved with building new buildings or improving current buildings, it would probably be a good school to go through.”

The course is at Central Wyoming College June 9th through the 11th. It is a 24 hour training over the three days, and a course certificate will be gained upon successful completion of a written test. Attendees will be provided with tools to use on their school campuses or within their school safety roles. The cost is $345 per person for NASRO members, and $395 for non-NASRO members.

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