April 28, 199 Press Briefing by Mike McCurry
The President also talked about an expansion of the police corps. Today we're awarding police corps grants to 17 states. The police corps was another campaign pledge from 1992. It passed as part of the 1994 crime bill. The first police corps grants went out last year. We're now going to be in 17 states, and this will triple the number of police corps recruits.
The police corps is an ROTC style program. Young people who agree to become police officers get four years college scholarship in return for four years of service as a police officer, and the police department that hires and trains them also gets some money to offset the hiring expense. This is an idea that was pioneered by Adam Wolinsky, a former aide to Senator Robert Kennedy, and the idea behind it is that not only does it promote service and give more people the chance to go to college, but it can help to transform policing and promote community policing in the country.