Cyber Cops: Criminal Justice Simulator Preps Students For Force Training

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. -- An adult male flees a house's garage, running down the driveway with a crowbar in hand. A female police officer, weapon drawn, intercepts him at the street, asking the suspect what he's doing and rapidly exchanging words. However, what happens next won't play out across news networks and social media platforms.

SUNY Orange criminal justice professor Robert Cacciatore, demonstrates the college’s new Response to Resistance Simulator, designed to train local law enforcement officers.
Photo Credit: *SUNY Orange*

John Haffey

Content Partner: SUNY Orange

Rather, the conclusion to this situation is up to the college professor sitting at the controls of SUNY Orange’s Response to Resistance criminal justice simulator. Based on the officer’s actions, the professor can have the scenario escalate toward violence or require the fleeing subject to comply with the officer’s commands. The actions of the “suspect” play out on a large video screen, while the “officer” is in a classroom on the Middletown campus, holding a fake weapon connected wirelessly to a simulator.

Recently acquired through a partnership with the SUNY Orange Foundation and Orange County Sheriff Carl E. DuBois, the college’s new TL-100 Training Lab simulator holds more than 500 scenarios that can serve as training exercises for SUNY Orange Criminal Justice students, as well as local law enforcement officers.

“In these scenarios, students will actually confront situations where resistance is present, and be subjected to nearly the same stresses and decision-making choices as police officers,” said Dennis O’Loughlin, chair of the College’s Criminal Justice Department. “Many of our students have aspirations of becoming sworn law enforcement officers and/or attorneys, and this type of situational training expands their understanding of tactics, weapons use, safety measures and complex situations.”

Law enforcement, security and criminal justice professions are evolving constantly. New and different stressors present themselves daily. How to deal with them requires contemporary training methods. SUNY Orange is hoping the TL-100 helps its graduates become better public servants.

The College’s associate’s degree in criminal justice, which prepares students for transfer to a four-year college, and police science, designed to prep for the workforce, are popular programs, as is its certificate in law enforcement/security. The college also maintains transfer agreements for criminal justice students with many four-year colleges and universities in the region.

For more information on SUNY Orange's criminal justice program, contact Dennis O’Loughlin at (845) 341-4355 or click here.