Buchanan County residents have an opportunity to experience what it’s like to work in law enforcement through an upcoming program.

The St. Joseph Police Department and the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office will present an eight-week Citizen’s Academy in April. They have been offering the program for over 10 years.

Sheriff Bill Puett said the Citizen’s Academy exposes community members to various aspects of area law enforcement.

“It introduces people who are interested to see some of the aspects of law enforcement and maybe dispel some of those myths and see some of the actual tools and techniques and those type of things,” Puett said. “For example, we have a SWAT night, they go up and watch the SWAT team… they can do ride-alongs… we do a case presentation. We talk about traffic and we talk about the jail and the court, how there’s all these little nuances of things that people, they see it on TV or they hear about it, but they’re not really exposed to the topic.”

The program takes place Tuesday evenings from 6 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesdays April 3rd through May 22nd. For more information call (816) 236-1473 or pick up an application at the St. Joseph Police Department lobby. Applications must be returned by March 23rd.