Houston Police Department - The Academy and Field Training

The Academy and Field Training

The Houston Police Department operates a non-residential, Monday through Friday police academy from which all cadets must graduate in order to become Houston police officers.

There are currently full-length academy classes for those cadets that have not been commissioned as peace officers within the previous year to applying with HPD. These cadet classes typically last approximately six months and consist of the basic peace officer course as required by the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education (TCLEOSE) and HPD specific instruction.

Lateral classes are typically in the academy for half as long as regular cadet classes. These lateral cadets are already TCLEOSE certified or have the equivalent out-of-state certification. They require mostly supplemental HPD instruction in order to graduate.

All cadets, whether regular or lateral, are required to pass HPD instruction in academics, firearms, driving, physical training, and defensive tactics.

Academy class ranking plays a significant part in determining which training station newly-minted Probationary Police Officers (PPOs) will be sent to in order to complete the Field Training Program.

The following patrol stations are considered training stations:

• Clear Lake
• Central
• Eastside
• Midwest
• North
• Northeast
• South Central
• Southeast
• Southwest/South Gessner
• Westside
• Northwest

The following patrol stations are not considered training stations:

• Airport
• Kingwood

The Field Training Program consists of six phases which occur in the following sequence:

• Phase 1 – Three weeks of training on day shift.
• Phase 2 – Three weeks of training on evening or night shift.
• Phase 3 – Three weeks of training on evening or night shift.
• Phase 4 – Two weeks of evaluation with one week of evaluation on evening shift and one week on night shift.
• Phase 5 – Remedial training.
• Phase 6 – Re-evaluation.

PPOs that successfully complete Phase 4 are not required to continue onto Phase 5 and 6. PPOs that are required to continue onto Phase 5 are given remedial training in the category or categories that they are deemed deficient in. If a PPO fails Phase 6, they are disqualified from becoming a police officer, and must reapply to the department. Phase 6 is required to ensure that they have corrected the deficiency.

The probationary period for PPOs last for one year from the date that they were hired on as cadets. At the one year point, officers become civil service protected.