TULSA, Okla. — The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office is partnering with Tulsa Tech to keep positions filled while fostering a positive track for high school students.
"It runs in my family. My grandma she's been in law enforcement before. My mom served in the military in Mexico," says Union High School senior Yasmin Brito.
Madison Brown is a senior at Berryhill High School.
"It's also, with all of my family. So, most of my aunts and uncles have been in military or served as like a police officer," says Berryhill High School senior Madison Brown.
Both girls are in Tulsa Tech’s criminal justice corrections and investigations program.
“It's very much getting you ready for the law enforcement field, preparing you to be in the real world. Working in the correctional field, it's very much a taste of the real world," Brito says.
The two-year-long program gets students ready for careers in law enforcement. The girls are in their second year in the program. When they graduate high school, the two will become detention officers at Tulsa County's David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center.
"Juniors study dispatch, as well as criminal law and a number of other areas. The seniors focus on corrections, with the goal of getting them to working at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office when they graduate from here,” says Criminal Justice senior class instructor Mike Brown.
Shyanne Dobbertin is a detention officer at the jail. She also went through the criminal justice program. Now, the roles have switched and she's helping students who are in the position she once was in.
"I spend a lot of time here with the kids and make sure I’m a familiar face if they decide to go to Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, they have someone they can count on and go to," says Dobbertin.
The students all share one thing in common, something you can't teach in a classroom, or on a mat — passion.
"You know you're risking your life for others so it's something you really have to be passionate about," says Brito. “Because not everyone wants to do that no everybody is okay, or comfortable with that."
And with that passion the possibilities are endless.
"I will hopefully enroll and try to apply for a police academy… then hopefully become a homicide detective one day," Brown says.
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