In an effort to ensure the Valdosta State University community receives the highest level of public safety service, Chief of Police Alan Rowe recently attended two weeks of intensive public safety leadership training in Israel with the country’s top police executives.
 
Rowe, director of Public Safety at VSU, was part of a 21-member delegation of senior law enforcement officials from Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina who participated in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange’s (GILEE) 27th annual peer-to-peer training program in partnership with Israel. While there, the delegates were shown best practices and the latest technologies in policing and public safety.
 
“We now unfortunately live in a world where the threat of terrorism is very real, and this experience in Israel was so much more than examining their infrastructure and tactics,” Rowe said. “The delegation was able to meet and train with professionals who have lived through this threat, and each of us left with a better understanding of causation, not just prevention and response.”
 
The focus for the training was community policing, which GILEE defines as a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, and improved police services and police legitimacy. Community policing seeks to achieve these things through a proactive reliance on community resources and through greater police accountability, a greater public share in decision-making, and a greater concern for civil rights and liberties.
 
“While this training experience provided me with a wealth of knowledge for terrorism prevention and response, the main concept I intend to return to VSU with is a renewed mission to grow our community policing efforts,” Rowe said. “We are incredibly fortunate to have an outstanding relationship with our campus community; however, this experience in Israel has provided another clear example that our ability to overcome any situation will be based in a partnership between law enforcement and the citizens we serve.”
 
GILEE is a research unit within Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. It enhances public safety by nurturing existing and new partnerships within and across public agencies and the private sector.