The reporting for this series started with an analysis of demographic data from the Metro Nashville Police Department, which showed that white, male cadets had graduated from the police academy at much higher rates than women and people of color between 2011 and 2020. New leaders have been working to diversify the department, so officers will look more like the communities they serve. But the numbers show the academy has been pushing out many of those cadets for years. WPLN News and APM Reports set out to understand why.
We obtained nearly 500 exit reports, which explained why cadets had dropped out of the academy during those years. Then, we reviewed those reports for common trends. Reporters also reached out to more than 50 of those recruits, hoping to learn about their training experience. Only a few agreed to interviews and most did not want to be named in the story. One former cadet who agreed to an on-the-record interview had also filed a federal lawsuit, which we reviewed. We also spoke with many current and former officers who did successfully graduate, including the first Black woman to complete the academy in the 1970s.
Our team obtained each training academy handbook that the department issued to cadets between 2011 and 2020. These gave us a better sense of the mission and tone of the training academy. We also visited the academy in April 2021 to observe a physical agility test, as well as a defensive tactics training course. During that visit, we spoke with multiple applicants, training cadets and members of the recruitment staff. We also conducted a separate interview with MNPD Deputy Chief Kay Lokey, who has overseen the department’s recruitment and training divisions since the summer of 2020.
Reporters interviewed multiple subject matter experts who research police training and read several studies on the topic, including reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Howard Earle’s 1973 book, “Police Recruit Training: Stress vs. Nonstress.” We also watched promotional videos from training academies across the country and read news reports detailing different academies’ attempts at reform. In addition, our team requested graduation rates during the same time period for dozens of other departments, though our efforts to obtain comparable data were mostly unsuccessful.
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