After two years and 16 Sheriff’s Academy classes, the 1000th deputy sheriff graduates the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) Academy tonight, Thursday, January 26, 2017 with Class 418.

“Over the last two years, 1000 sheriff’s deputies chose to dedicate themselves to service to the community, and graduated the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy,” said Sheriff Jim McDonnell. “These are challenging times for law enforcement, yet there are clearly thousands of men and women who deeply care about people and want to make a difference. We are continuing to recruit and are ready for 700 more men and women with compassion, character, and competence to join us in the next year.”

Our traditional recruitment efforts include the great success of our own employees to help recruit their new partners. Meanwhile, our recruitment, testing, backgrounds and training deputies and professional staff have worked harder, and smarter, than ever to create and implement innovative efforts to share that the LASD is a great place to be a peace officer.

The sheriff’s deputies of the LASD reflect the diversity of the people we serve. Our current total of 9391 sworn personnel are: 45% Hispanic, 39% White, 9% African-American, 5% Asian, and 2% other diverse members. 18% of deputy personnel are women. The 1000 new deputies speak 20 different languages and join the employees of the LASD who speak a total of 64 languages.

The LASD highly values and encourages advanced education throughout each deputy’s career. A college degree is not required to become a deputy sheriff, yet 43% of these 1000 new deputies joined with a college degree in a wide variety of majors.

Our high standards remain high, while improved efficiencies have made a huge impact on our Recruitment and training successes:

Recruitment
Our social media and digital recruitment campaign continues to grow and includes our Recruitment website www.lasdcareers.org, the 1-800-ADEPUTY information line, and interactive information, photos and videos shared via LASD Recruitment Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joinlasd/, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/LASDrecruitment/, Twitter https://twitter.com/joinLASD and YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/LACountySheriff. These sites include videos shared from inside the LASD that show the application process, how to prepare for the Academy, and illustrate the diversity of assignments and opportunities and why “One Badge, Unlimited Possibilities” is so descriptive of the LASD.

Testing
Testing team members provide geographically convenient written exams in different parts of the county and beyond once a month. Meanwhile, scheduled written or walk-in written exams are held every week near the Sheriff’s Academy in East Los Angeles.

Backgrounds
The newly implemented “eHire” is the LASD electronic/online application process. eHire has changed the century-old method of hand-printed applications, and advanced it into a much more efficient online process. eHire has improved the hiring process time from written exam to hire date from taking well over a year, to an average of about eight months.

Pre-Academy
Pre-Academy workout and fitness training is available to applicants after they have passed their written exam. Applicants who regularly participate in the pre-Academy workouts have a much lower injury rate during the Academy, and a graduation rate of over 90%. These applicants get fit and learn the Academy’s expectations before it starts. The free workouts are held in the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday in East Los Angeles, or Monday and Wednesday in the Santa Clarita Valley, at the two Sheriff’s Academies.

Future Hiring
With the graduation of Sheriff’s Academy Class 418, a total of 1040 sheriff’s deputies have graduated the Academy in the past two years. Meanwhile, during those two years, 847 sworn Department members retired or left the LASD. The LASD now has 9391 sworn personnel plus nearly 700 funded and available deputy sheriff vacancies. For the past year, and looking forward for years to come, we anticipate continuing to start a new Sheriff’s Academy class every six weeks.

The LASD Academy is a regional training center and over the past two years (Classes 403-418) also graduated 143 new police officers from the following police departments: Azusa, Baldwin Park School, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Downey, El Monte, El Segundo, Glendale, Glendale College, Glendora, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Park, Inglewood, La Verne, Los Angeles School, Monrovia, Montebello, Monterey Park, Redondo Beach, San Gabriel, San Marino, Santa Paula, Sierra Madre, Signal Hill, South Pasadena, and West Covina; and the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, California Department of Insurance, Fraud Division, and California Department of State Hospitals, Metropolitan Los Angeles.

Each class of deputy sheriffs who graduate from the LASD Biscailuz Regional Training Center (BRTC) Academy in East Los Angeles and College of the Canyons (COC) Training Center in the Santa Clarita Valley bring a collection of unique aspects, qualities and experiences.

43% of the new deputies over the last two years joined the LASD with Associate’s, Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in: Accounting; Anthropology; Business Administration, Business Management, Communications and Arts History; Criminal Justice; Criminology, Law and Society; Economics; Electrical Engineering; English; Public Administration; Geography; Graphic Design; Health and Physical Education; History; International Development Studies; Kinesiology; Marketing; Psychology; Liberal Studies; and Sociology of Law and Society.

Of the 1000 sheriff’s deputies who graduated in the past two years, many speak other languages including Arabic, Cambodian, Carolinian, Chamorro, Chinese – Cantonese, Chinese – Mandarin, Farsi, French, Hindu, Italian, Japanese, Kissi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

We encourage you to review our Recruitment information online and share it with who you respect and think would be a great deputy sheriff, maybe it’s you.

GRADUATION INFORMATION:
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ASSISTANT SHERIFF JACQUES LA BERGE TO PRESIDE OVER GRADUATION CEREMONY OF ACADEMY CLASS #418

Who: Assistant Sheriff Jacques La Berge, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will preside over the graduation ceremonies, and will deliver the keynote address.

What: Assistant Sheriff La Berge will be joined by Police Chiefs and representatives from Beverly Hills, Culver City, Inglewood and Los Angeles School Police Departments, in presenting diplomas to 75 graduates of Academy Class #418.

When: Thursday, January 26, 2017
7:00 P.M.
(Formal class inspection begins at 6:00 P.M.)

Where: East Los Angeles College
1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez
Ingalls Auditorium, Building G3
Monterey Park, California 91754