Before they get the badge, Kentucky police officers must attend the Department of Criminal Justice Training.

Most of them do that in Richmond, on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University, where they spend 20 weeks learning the skills and knowledge necessary for public safety.

Now that distance can be a challenge, however, for recruits in Western Kentucky.

As our Laura Rogers explains, a new option is on the way to ease that burden.

Early last year, the Department of Criminal Justice Training joined with Madisonville Police Department to open a basic training academy in Western Kentucky.

We've got a great partnership with doc.

It's been wonderful working with them.

That partnership will continue in a new $50 million facility.

Getting more officers from preparation to patrol on a faster timeline.

One of the things that we saw really right around the Covid era, just after, was the fact that you couldn't get a police officer into training for 6 to 7 months.

It's a year and a half, really, before you can get a new officer on the street.

Combine this with the fact there was a need for more officers as tier one employees on the 20 year retirement plan.

We're moving on.

We started talking about this with the legislators and with doc.

We realized that there's only one place in Kentucky that you can put another academy and make it so that every officer is within two hours, and that's Madisonville.

Construction is now officially underway on the Department of Criminal Justice training West Gaines Brown campus.

It will.

Be a significant investment in the community, but it's a significant investment into law enforcement.

Training.

And I'll be honest with you.

After having 30 years in law enforcement to see this happen anywhere in Western Kentucky, it's kind of surreal because I never thought it was going to happen.

But the fact that it's happening in Madisonville makes it even better.

Chief Steve Bryan, a former Kentucky state trooper, says the new training facility will help recruit more officers and able to leave home for 20 weeks.

Hundreds of miles away in Richmond.

It's a 3.5 hour drive for us.

So, I mean, if you live in Paducah, that's a five hour drive.

You can almost drive to Chicago in five hours.

In the long run, he says, it will also help save taxpayer dollars.

Our agency alone spends over $50,000 a year sending people to training every year in Richmond.

We're super excited about it.

State representative Wade Williams, who represents Hopkins County in the state legislature, is the former Madisonville police chief.

Having one close where someone can drive home, relatively quickly if anything comes up, I think it will make a better atmosphere for those employees that that want to get into the field.

But don't have to put their family through such a burden to do so.

He says training closer to home may also help officers better understand the communities they serve.

Richmond does a good job of teaching the generalized the job of law enforcement.

Every small community or every, region, I guess, of the state.

I found this out in the state legislature that there's a lot of different cultural backgrounds and different areas.

The new West campus will have the space to graduate officers more quickly going from training about 25 at a time to 50 through concurrent classes.

So they'll start a class, and then two weeks later, they'll start another class.

Two weeks later they'll start another class.

And that's kind of what they do in Richmond right now.

It's designed for departments west of Elizabethtown and I-65.

But Chief Bryan says some recruits may still train at EKU.

The first thing they're going to do when they hire somebody is check and see where the first opening is.

If we hire somebody and the first opening is Richmond, we may send them to Richmond just because that's going to get them out on the street faster.

The dock at West Campus is expected to open later next year or early 2028.

It definitely is going to be nice to have it in our own backyard.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you Laura.

The Kentucky General Assembly has also okayed $13 million for a paved driving course to train for high speed pursuits and other operations.

As for the current building in Madisonville, Chief Brian says they've received federal funding for a cyber crim