With the start of the new year, all police recruits in Illinois will have to take a course on avoiding wrongful convictions.
This is a new requirement but was developed several years ago and used by Mike Schlosser who is the Director of the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois. The course focuses on the importance of carefully gathering and analyzing evidence and not jumping to conclusions about certain subjects.
“We talk about tunnel vision, misidentification, official misconduct, forensic science problems, false accusations, and incentivized testimony.”
Schlosser says one of the highlights of the course is hearing from someone who has been exonerated.
“They tell their story of this what happened to me, this what it felt like when I was there, these are the consequences I had when I came out. It is very emotional. When you can see a real human being who has experienced something like this it has a very big impact on the recruit officers.”
Schlosser says the training is now mandatory for all cadets.
