Some criminal justice majors at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) are trading the classroom for the police department this semester.
A partnership between TAMUK and the Bishop Police Department is working to encourage students to take an interest in law enforcement. Students like senior Abraham Sanchez fell into the pursuit after changing his original major.
“I was a bio-med major but I realized it wasn’t for me. My dad is a detective and now I’m hoping to be a police officer,” Sanchez said.
Students will get hands-on experience with a full range of assignments law officials take on on a daily basis.
“We’ll assign them to patrol for a few weeks, CID to highway interdiction to narcotics,” Bishop Police Chief Edward Day said.
This is the third year of the partnership. Day said he hopes the hands-on experience leads to a recruiting opportunity for not only the Bishop PD but other law agencies locally because recruiting in smaller communities can be challenging.
“We don’t have everything that bigger cities have to offer like housing and accommodations. Sometimes when you have officers that work in a community that they’re not from, there’s a disconnect. If we can get people from the community to work in the community, that’s a win for everybody,” Day said.