| Major demographic changes in the United States have occurred within the past decade and are projected to continue well into the 21st century. Ethnic, cultural, and language barriers have and will continue to test communication between officer and the diverse populace since failure to interact effectively affects officer and public safety. This demographic study was undertaken to ascertain in what manner state police training academies have implemented strategies in core training requirements to meet the needs of officers in their interactions with a diverse, multilingual society.;The research design of this study incorporated a quantitative design consisting of a survey sent to commanding officers in charge of the 49 state police training academies to determine the response of state police training academies to a multilingual population. The survey included questions concerning (a) the background for multilingual training programs, (b) state requirements for foreign language training, (c) mandated state police multilingual training requirements, (d) elective in-service multilingual programs, and (e) anticipated multilingual in-service training programs.;Data analysis from respondents generated frequency counts and percentages. Chi-square was used to analyze data to determine if frequencies observed in the study deviated significantly from expected population frequencies. Statistical significance was not found between the state police training academies' response to a multilingual population and the following categories: (a) population density, (b) population subsets per state, (c) number of state police officers per state, (d) officer subsets, and (e) state police operating expenditures. |
