State Special Police Officer

Can anyone explain to me what exactly a state special police officer is, and how they get trained?

Can one self-sponcer themselves for the class?

Thank you very much

 

Most Massachusetts SSPO Officers attend an extensive 16-week Massachusetts Special State Police Academy located in New Braintree, MA (MSP ACADEMY). In addition, every SSPO is required to attend 3 days of in-service training on an annual basis. SSPO Officers are also trained in specialized areas such as Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense), Drug Identification, Supervisor Management School, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency Planning, Court Prosecution, and Crime Prevention.

 

State Special Police Officers are officers that work at non tradional police agencies such as Colleges and Hopsitals. We get our police powers from the Colonel of the State Police...The training is done in several different ways...One can attend the SSPO Academy that is held at beautiful camp New Braintree... It is a 16 week optional live in paramilitary academy..and despite being quite challanging the MPTC won't take it as a full time academy here in Mass...38 other states will however..so one could relocate if one desires..(I have heard of town chiefs getting waivers but I am not sure) the other way is to attend a full mptc academy or have a AS or BA in CJ and have the part time academy..as far as self sponsering goes..Not sure you can do it as everyone in my class already worked somewhere. Hope this helps

 

Interesting. So this training is done by MSP? I'll have to contact their traing dept next time I'm dispatching and find out how I can get in on the next class.

Thank you very much....

 

You can't get in , unless you work for a campus police department or, DPH,DMH,DMR, Railroad PD,MassPort PD or some other PD that sends recruits to this academy.

 

State Special Police Officer are the folks who work at State college, State Hospital, Department Of Correstion and most other State run angency that have police officer are Special State Police Officers.

As fare as putting yourself threw the school I would tell you to conatct your local college and see if they would and you should check with the State Police H.Q. Human Resorce office.

Patrick.

 

Anyone know which of those 38 states WILL accept Special State as a substitute to there academy.

 

Not just for State "Departments".. also for just about every Private Campus PD in the Commonwealth of Mass., and this can include small private schools (not just Colleges), Hospitals - not state owned; and a few other run of the mill institutions.

 

No campus police department is going to sponsor you to the SSPO Academy unless you are employed by them. Self-sponsoring is not going to get you into the SSPO Academy.

 

Not true my friend SSPO #16 had a self sponsor from Springfield Tech Community College.

 

:-k Wow. After contacting numerous schools to inquire about self-sponsoring to the SSPO academy, a campus chief suggested I call the State Police to ask what campus departments may have self-sponsored in the past, and I was told, quote "You have to be employed by the college" to be given a slot at SSPO. After 10 strikeouts with campus chiefs who told me the liability, or regulations prevented them from accepting self-sponsors, I accepted what the SP told me at face value.

I'll give Springfield Tech Community College a call if I am interested in the SSPO academy again. Thanks.
:t:

 

JoninNH............Take a chance by telling the schools that you would be willing to sign a "Waiver of Liability" form of some sort. I know that people do this for the Reserve academy. I don't know how the MSP SSPO works, but it's worth a shot.

 

I'm just curious why would one want to sponser themselves to the SSPO academy...I know the training is good but your sort of limited in Mass as to where you can work

 

Jack, It may be hard to believe, but some of us would actually like to work as campus police officers. Also, the fact that you were willing to give several months and pay thousands of dollars to complete the academy is an advantage when applying elsewere... even if the job you're applying for doesn't honor the SSPO academy. For example, if you had two applicants for a police officer position, and one had attended an academy and one had not, chances are you'd look more favorably upon the individual who had put himself thru the academy because at least he has some training, whereas the other individual had never been thru a paramilitary academy before.

Thanks for the advice SoxRock.

 

JoninNHm,


I know you are trying to self sponsor yourself for an academy, but why arent you trying to self sponsor yourself to the full-time acadmy? It is about the same cost and only a couple of weeks longer; also it is worthe more in MA, you can use it for college and town if you wanted. It would give you more flexability. Good luck.

 

As a campus police officer I don't think that's difficult to believe at all.....It's just when I've heard most people talk about sponsering themselves to an academy they often look at the MPTC....not too often do you hear people wanting to sponser themselves to the SSPO....:mrgreen:

 

MPTC won't let you self-sponsor to a full-time academy anymore. Lowell, I believe, was the last of the hold outs, and I have recently heard from an officer there that they will not accept self-sponsors either. My home state of NH's academy is the same way, you can't sponsor yourself, plus it's too short to transfer to MA. I've sent for Vermont's application packet.

 

Can't sponsor yourself to the MPTC anymore. The SP person I talked to told me I couldn't to SSPO either, but someone on this board says it's happened reciently, so I'm gonna try again. Why SSPO? Because its good in most other states as a full-time academy, including Florida, where I have secretly wanted to relocate to for a while, so if I ever decide that Campus Policing isn't for me, I can fall back to municipal.

 

The self sponsor in the last SSPO (#16) did work P/T at STCCPD as a securtiy guard. He paid his own way and did not have a cop job waiting back at STCCPD. I guess it can be done but he had a major inside track because of his P/T work with the department.

 

Alright. Im a PT dispatcher now, just for a little fun. Im giong to talk to the CLEO this week, see if I can get him to "sign off" on me going to the R/I . From there, I'll see where I can go.

What I REALLY need is to stop f'ing around and go back to college. It's just so hard with time right now unfortunatetly

 

A buddy of mine asked me a question and I don't know the answer so I figured I would see the info here. He has a reserve academy but no degree yet. He does have well over 60 college credits but probably won't actually get his degree for a few years. Would he still be eligible for State Police Special powers?

 

It all depends on the position of the sun and rotation of the moon...:lol: I've heard it works for some and for others it doesn't.

 

I think it all depends on what types of courses he has credits in. I know when I applied for my SSPO Warrant, they requested a copy of my transcripts to see how many CJ classes I had because my B.S. was in Sociology with a concentration in CJ. It wasn't that big of a problem but it could have been. Maybe I was lucky SP Danvers was in a good mood that day.

 

State Special Police Officer & CT

Does anyone know if CT accepts the SSPO Academy as an equivalent full-time academy?

 

Nope. With the SSPO CT requires you attend their POST academy. If you have the MPOC and you want to get equivalency it works like MA, you get the job, then the Chief applies to CT POST for the equivalency.