§12559 State Plan Requirements

Summary

Require a State Police Corps plan to set rules for picking and placing participants. The plan must use the screening rules in section 12556. It must limit statewide force assignments to no more than 25 percent of a State’s yearly participants unless the Director allows more. Participants must go where extra officers are needed most and where they will be used best. When possible they should be placed near their home or where they ask to serve. Assignments should be made when a person joins the program if feasible, but can change before the start of a participant’s fourth year of undergraduate study. From that fourth year until the participant finishes 4 years of police service, changes may happen only for strong reasons and with the participant’s consent. The plan must not send a participant to a local force that has shrunk by more than 5 percent since June 21, 1989, or that has laid off members who were not retired. Participants should be kept on community and preventive patrol when feasible, and must get good training and leadership. A State may refuse to hire or remove a participant only for good cause (for example, poor school progress) and only after reasonable review steps in the plan. While serving, participants must receive the same pay, benefits, and rights as other officers of the same rank and tenure.