Tift County sheriff Gene Scarbrough returns from police leadership training in Israel

ATLANTA — Sheriff Gene Scarbrough of the Tift County Sheriff’s Office has returned after an intensive two weeks of public safety leadership training with Israel’s top policing executives, according to a press release.

He joined police chiefs, sheriffs, and public safety commissioners and officials—and a senior corporate security manager—in a 21-member delegation of senior law enforcement officials from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee who participated in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange’s (GILEE) 26th annual peer-to-peer training program in partnership with Israel. While there, they studied best practices and the latest advances in community policing, counterterrorism, emergency management, advanced technologies and homeland security policies.

This year’s peer-to-peer training emphasized community policing, the textbook definition of which was developed by Robbie Friedmann, GILEE’s founding director, while he was a Georgia State University professor:

Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime-causing conditions. It assumes a need for greater accountability of police, greater public share in decision-making and greater concern for civil rights and liberties.

Founded in 1992, GILEE is a Georgia homeland security program. The organization works continuously to improve public safety by enhancing inter-agency cooperation, partnerships and professional educational training among the world’s top law enforcement communities, most recently in Israel and Hungary. To date, it has offered more than 200 special briefings to more than 32,000 law enforcement officers, corporate security personnel and community leaders. GILEE has carried out more than 450 programs and produced more than 1,500 graduates.