For the past three years, the Fairfax County Police Department has been running a first of its kind recruiting and training program to immerse new recruits into the lifestyle of being a law enforcement officer before they enter the academy.
WTOP was invited to get a behind the scenes look.
The Pre-Academy Recruit Program, or PARS, is up to 12 weeks long, giving recruits preparation that they need to succeed while building resilience and the “mental and physical grit that it takes to do the job,” Capt. Dean Tran said.
Rachel Scott, a recruit for Fairfax County police, has been flowing through the program.
On Wednesday afternoon she hustled through a physical training gauntlet. She ran to do burpees after doing farmer’s carries and battle ropes. She completed the workout gauntlet with dozens of teammates at her side.
“Once you’re thrown into the academy, it’s a lot of go, go, go, and you don’t really get time to get to know the people around you. They have developed this program to really get to know the people that are going to be your academy classmates,” Scott told WTOP.
Scott is one of 39 in this rotation for PARS. She and the others will be going into the academy Friday.
During her days as a PARS recruit, she is getting physically prepared with strength and conditioning training daily.
“It’s more like a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) program, where it really focuses on every single body part,” Scott said.
Officer Caitlin Rodriguez, a recent graduate of both the PARS program and police academy, said about the importance of physical training for the job, “It’s so physically demanding. I want to put the best version of myself out on the streets for other people, because you’re meeting people at the worst stage in their life, or at some incident where you want to be able to physically be able to handle whatever’s thrown at you.”
Travis Lipscomb is the strength and conditioning coach for the Fairfax County Police Department and said they do similar physical training four times a week.
“Our goal is to prepare them physically for the academy and then the career they’re going to be going into afterward,” Lipscomb said.
“The movements will develop skills, and that will be very useful in the job and injury preventive.”
His favorite exercise to put the recruits through: “I will say I enjoy loading up a front squat and seeing what these guys and gals can do.”
Strength and conditioning are not the only preparation these recruits are getting; recruits, officer and senior command agreed that it was a time to change your mindset and develop the mental grit that it takes to do the job.
Scott told WTOP that they also go through very basic law enforcement course such as search warrant exceptions, arrest procedures and court systems.
Different specialties such as crime scene investigation, homicide detective, fugitive squad and even SWAT make presentations to the new recruits, showing their options after they get experience on patrol.
“I want to take my time in patrol, because you really need to get that experience and the only way you can get that experience is by doing it and being out on the streets,” Scott said. “But eventually I would like to do supplemental search and rescue, as well as I want to be a detective and crime scene and Major Crimes bureau.”
She was drawn to join the department because of her desire to help others.
Scott said, “That’s the cliche, but it is true.”
She thought about joining the military, but decided to join Fairfax County police because it was a little closer to her parents.
Fairfax County now puts every new recruit through PARS before they head to the academy with an emphasis on comradery with their fellow classmates.
Scott described one bonding exercise: “Every week we have different partners that we’re assigned to that we have to talk about the writing prompt. That makes it so that there’s no, cliques forming and you get to talk to everyone, and it’s just really a big team environment.”
“Every time I see them at the jail, it’s kind of like a little family reunion,” Rodriguez agreed. “It’s one community and it’s one family. I feel that way with my academy class.”
Scott’s class is the ninth to go through PARS since it started in 2023.
“The program is the first of its kind in this metropolitan area, and I would argue, on this side of the country, and we’re proud of it,” Tran said.
“It has changed our hiring system for the better. We’ve seen drastic results in the ability to go after the most viable recruits.”
Tran also said 41% of this class are women.
“That is astronomical in the field of law enforcement,” Tran said where she said female officers are underrepresented.
They are recruiting for their next cohort which begins in August.
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