RICHLAND CENTER, Wis. — Annabelle Chally is a second-year criminal justice and law enforcement student at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College.
“Each time you put the prints on there, they could save from the following prints so you could get overlap,” said Chally while learning how to run fingerprints.
Chally is spending her fall semester mentoring at the Richland Sheriff’s department. It’s an organization where she currently works part time.
“It becomes a lot more real and a lot more ingrained when you can actually do it hands on and you are not just reading it or watching someone else do it,” said Chally.
Students involved with the mentorship program are required to fulfill 72 hours of field experience throughout the fall semester.
Students were allowed mentor at one of Southwest Wisconsin Technical College's five county districts.
Chally said she chose Richland because it is where she grew up and a place she hopes to stay after graduation.
“I would love to go full time here in the jail and dispatch, and I am hoping a road position will open up for Richland County,” said Chally.
Sheriff Clay Porter of the Richland County Sheriff’s department said before departments could start working with students, his officers had to go to the school and introduce themselves.
“Went in, gave a short little power point presentation, a sales pitch if you will or why would you want to do your mentorship here, then from there we got letters of interest,” said Porter.
Sheriff Porter said his department is currently at full staff but indicated that recruitment can be difficult.
He hopes that this partnership with Southwest Wisconsin Technical College will make that process easier in the future.
“We get to pick someone from that class that is already interested in coming and meeting us and then get to know them better, they get to know us better and see how they interact with our staff,” said Porter.
Chally is learning a variety of things from working in the jail, patrol and dispatch.
“I do really like talking to people, and I feel like I can communicate well, so [working in dispatch] is not super difficult,” said Chally.
Other police departments involved with the mentorship program include:
- Prairie du Chien
- Iowa County Sheriff’s Office
- Crawford County Sheriff’s Office
- Grant County Sheriff’s Office
- Sauk County Sheriff’s Office
- Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office