On Sunday August 14th representatives of the Court of Guardian, Probation Department, Juvenile Detention Center (Miss Lali Center) Prosecutors Office, Police Juvenile Department, Division Heads, Team Leaders and police management team attended a workshop provided by Dr. Everett Penn, criminologist and co-founder of the TAPS- Academy based in Houston, Texas.
TAPS is a program primarily designed for at risk youth, where students partner with mentor officers to discuss issues including bullying, anger management, avoidance of gang life, drug use and conflict management as well as other youth and law enforcement topics.
The Chief of Police Carl John met Dr. Penn during the discussions at the General Assembly Meeting and Conference with the ACCP (Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police) held earlier this year.
Dr. Penn stated that he and his family would be on a cruise in the Caribbean area in the month of August of this year and Sint Maarten would be one of his destinations. He gladly offered the police chief a one day training session on TAPS for the police force and other departments within the Justice Chain who are directly involved with at risk- youth and youth delinquency.
The police chief gladly accepted this offer and made sure all necessary arrangements were made to have this training take place. Subjects such as Implicit Bias, Procedural Justice and Juvenile Delinquency were among the other topics that were part of the training.
The participants of the different departments experienced this training as very informative and look forward to follow-up training sessions and discussions with Dr. Penn on when and how to best go about implementing a TAPS –Academy on Sint Maarten.
At the end of the training the Acting Chief of Police Denise Jacobs expressed sincere gratitude to Dr. Everette Penn on behalf of all departments present and Chief Commissioner Carl John for the training he provided and look forward for further communication and discussions regarding TAPS-Academy.