Eastern Maine Community College Students to Partner with Orono Police Department to Stage Traffic Stops

BANGOR, Maine – Students in Eastern Maine Community College’s new criminal justice program will be participating in mock traffic stops with the Orono Police Department.

These exercises will take place on Wednesday, October 1st from 1:00-1:50pm and Thursday, October 2nd from 9:30-10:45am in the parking lot located on the east side of Penobscot Hall on the EMCC campus in Bangor.

Students will role-play as police officers and react to a mock-scenario that warrants pulling over a vehicle. These scenarios can range from a basic stop sign violation, to travelling at excessive speed, to swerving over the center line. According to Cornel Plebani, instructor for the criminal justice program, this will enable students to take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to changeable factors and scenarios.

“These experiential exercises will test students’ ability to navigate a stop scenario,” says Plebani.
“They will have to explain why they stopped the vehicle and for what reasons they took a certain course of action. It is up to them to figure out if they can make an arrest, write a summons, search the vehicle, and so forth.”

Members of the Orono Police Department will be on hand to participate and offer guidance to students role-playing and observing. They will debrief the entire class at the end of the mock-scenarios and help students to understand what they can and cannot do in certain traffic stops.

Eastern Maine Community College’s criminal justice program began in the fall semester of 2014 and has 24 students enrolled. The program is designed to provide both in-service and pre-service students with sound technical and academic experiences which will prepare them for employment in justice-related professions at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as in the field of private security.  Students are also prepared for entrance into the Maine Criminal Justice Academy and to transfer into a Bachelor Degree program.

Eastern Maine Community College is a two-year college that provides the highest quality post-secondary technical, career and transfer education and serves as a dynamic community and economic development resource. In addition to its Bangor campus, the college has three off-campus higher education centers in Dover-Foxcroft, Ellsworth, and East Millinocket.