Nationwide Rural Area Law Enforcement Study (NRALES)

The purpose of this project was to conduct an evaluation of three critical areas for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s National Center for State and Local Law Enforcement Training.

1. Nationwide Training Needs Assessment

Surveys were developed and administered to both law enforcement and community leaders that serve populations of less than 50,000.  Information and data were gathered and analyzed in the following areas:

• Severity of current crime problems
• Most prevalent crime problems by region
• Anticipated severity of future crime problems
• What training is needed on current police issues
• What training is needed in police operations
• What are the obstacles to receiving training
• General demographic information

    2.    Training and Delivery Methods Evaluation

A complete training evaluation was conducted of the National Center’s training programs to include Direct Delivery, Train the Trainer and Secondary Students.  This evaluation focused on the following areas:

• Effectiveness of training received (evaluated through the use of pre- and post-test)
• Usage of the training after returning to the field
• Appropriateness of the class time devoted to the training
• Appropriateness of the delivery methods
• Overall importance of the subject matter

In addition, an evaluation of the National Center’s Train the Trainer and Direct Delivery programs was conducted to determine the effectiveness of these programs in the following areas:

• Effectiveness of training
• Importance of training
• Usage
• Amount of time presented on subject in class

and provide summary statistics in the following areas:

• Number of students who attended the training
• Number of students who attended the training but did not subsequently training any other students
• Number of secondary students that received training
• Number of secondary students trained by direct delivery programs

    3.    Marketing Evaluation

Small town and rural law enforcement agencies nationwide were surveyed to collect data that would provide specific information identifying marketing tools, recourses, media and methods that agencies use in order to provide the National Center with information on how it should:

• Market its programs
• Determine best methods of marketing to law enforcement (magazines, websites, conferences)
• How law enforcement would prefer to receive training notifications (direct mail, e-mail, fax, etc.)

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