Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

What is your post's relationship with BSA?


In my post we do details for them (traffic/crowd control), and register each year through them, but not much else.

Sometimes we don't follow their "rules" ie. no paintball trips because it allows "immature personnel to use 'weapons'":rolleyes:; and the only contact we have with the BSA higher-ups is at details.


On the recruitment/fundraising letters we don't say we are a part of BSA, because of their past issues (regarding membership of homosexual teens( a PD is supposed to be equal-minded and fair to all citizens) and it may be seen as an implied message by the public

Is your post any different.

My post used them for the insurance and occasional national competition and that was it. The program was run like a cadet group.

Greenlead:

Yes, this is exactly how my post is run.

In fact, based on previous comments by some of the advisors, actions of department higher-ups, and the general political climate, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually separate the post into two, one for ages 14-17 the other 18+, and either front or back-door it into becoming a Community Service Officer-esque position.

Let me explain.

Lately some things have been happening in our post that are 'unusual' for an explorer post. For example, the chief advisor eventually wants cadets over 18 to be certified with pepper-spray. In addition, we have just gotten ID cards, and may soon be getting shields. The rumor is, and the command staff apparently approves, they will look closer to Sworn shields than most explorer posts have.

Now, the political climate is unique in two ways. One, this department has a high turn-over rate. Reason being, they are not a primary agency in the county, rather a back-up one. This leads to many young deputies leaving as they want to do "real" police work on the day-shift, instead of just civil and transports (the department is an SO). Additionally, the county legislature HATES this department. It seems that almost every issue on budget turns into a fight. The reason for this is that many county legislators are loyal to the local PD's, and don't want to see the SO take away from their(PD's) jobs.

Based on these things, I believe that our post will turn, at least in part, into a CSO type position. Wether this is intentional or not, this is how I see it going.

*I have ZERO information to confirm this, it is only my personal belief based on a very few observations*

Our post is only involved with BSA for the national competition. We do insurance through the department, that way we can do all the FX (sim-unitions) training and all that good jazz.

Our post is only involved with BSA for the national competition. We do insurance through the department, that way we can do all the FX (sim-unitions) training and all that good jazz.

I should mention that we were also covered by the city's insurance, in case one of us was directing traffic and caused an accident or something.

Many posts do what has been posted above.

Register with BSA for the insurance (while following BSA guidelines) and to attend competitions.

When they decide to not follow BSA guidelines, they fall back on city's insurance in case something goes wrong during that activity.

when i was in explorers, we were told that we are registered under them because we're not commissioned officers and we're not paid. To do the type of minor security events wearing the patches that represent the department, we have to be under something and boy scouts was the closest thing since no explorers were of age to carry a side arm.

we even did 24 hour security for a boy scout camp over the summer.

Interesting...

It seems like most posts run like it a cadet program, rather than an explorer post.

Does anyone know of a department that is run exactly or very close to LFL guidelines?

Does anyone know of a department that is run exactly or very close to LFL guidelines?

I have yet to hear of one. There are very few BSA registered programs in my area.

We are registered through BSA for the insurance. For some time I worked high school football/basketball games under the school district police, but the school district realized it didn't want to be liable for me and 6 other explorers to get injured, so now we work those games as explorers, not as school police assistants.

We don't exactly follow all guidelines, but in any case in life when a rule is made, often I see that most aren't even enforced.

We don't do any competitions or anything. And we work events under the city and the city police department. If an event is not FOR the city, it's usually a contracted thing where the post gets paid for the work. And I get nothing. :rolleyes:

We only use them for the competitions other than that we do not use them for insurance!!!! That way we can make our own guildlines that we can follow, through the departments insurance.