U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Fact Sheet www.cops.usdoj.gov

Training Fact Sheet

The COPS Office has a series of requirements for the 

development and delivery of in-person and online training. 

These requirements can be found in the two COPS Office 

curriculum guides: (1) Online Curriculum Standards and 

Review: Process Guide at https://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/

training/Online_Curriculum_Process_Guide.pdf and 

(2) In-Person Curriculum Standards and Review: Process 

Guide at https://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/training/In_

Person_Curriculum_Standards_Guide.pdf. The guides 

were established to provide guidance to COPS Office 

training providers and program managers on instructional 

design, promising practices, and the process by which the 

COPS Office will review and approve curricula.

The COPS Office trainings are national in scope and should 

have a specific law enforcement audience: executives, first-line 

supervisors, line officers, dispatchers, joint community and 

officers, etc. COPS Office training supports the needs of the 

law enforcement field and strives to increase public safety.

The training goals of the COPS Office are as follows:

Establish a common process for the development of 

COPS Office training initiatives.

Manage quality control through a series of review and 

approval checkpoints.

Standardize content, style, format, and quality.

Establish clear outcome expectations of training initiatives.

Maintain training relevance for the field.

Prepare training for accreditation through national law 

enforcement training accreditation programs.

The COPS Office defines training as the teaching and learning activities carried out for the primary purpose of helping 

members of an organization acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes needed by a particular 

job or organization. Training is driven by specific goals and 

objectives; it is not a single event but rather an ongoing process that requires continuous self-reflection and evaluation.

Learning outcomes and objectives. Objectives describe 

what learners should be able to know and do after training. 

Learning outcomes establish the criteria by which the training will be judged a success. Training objectives and learning 

outcomes should be aligned with an employee’s position 

and with the organization’s goals and mission.

Self-reflection and evaluation. Self-reflection should be 

a conscious process whereby trainees critically analyze the 

training materials and test their own understanding and 

retention; it is an internal check on the progress and outcomes of the training. Evaluation is the external check; 

it should consist of setting goals in accordance with the 

learning outcomes and objectives and conducting pre- and 

post-training testing and a final course evaluation to ensure 

those goals are met.

Training materials. Guides, webinars, articles, conference 

presentations, podcasts, videos, blogs, and newsfeeds (to 

provide a few examples) can serve as support material in 

trainings or as standalone materials to increase knowledge, 

but on their own they cannot be defined as training.

The COPS Office also has a series of requirements that instructors must meet prior to becoming instructors for COPS 

Office courses and for the duration of their instructor tenure. 

Those requirements can be found in the COPS Office’s 

Instructor Quality Assurance Guide at https://www.cops.

usdoj.gov/pdf/training/Instructor_Quality_Assurance_

Guide.pdf.

Contact the COPS Office

For questions related to the development and 

delivery of in-person or online training, please 

contact the COPS Office Response Center.

For more information about COPS Office 

programs and resources, please call the COPS 

Office Response Center at 800-421-6770 or visit 

the COPS Office website at www.cops.usdoj.gov.

June 2020