ABLE Project Fully Implemented

The Urbana Police Department is proud to announce the completion of department-wide Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE) training and full implementation of the ABLE Project.

The Urbana Police Department adopted the ABLE Project training at the request of Interim Chief of Police Richard Surles and supported by the Urbana City Council, Mayor Diane Marlin, and City Administrator Carol Mitten. Community support for the application to the ABLE Project came from NAACP Champaign County Branch President Minnie Pearson and Urbana School District #116 Superintendent Jennifer Ivory-Tatum.

Georgetown Law CICS partnered with global law firm Sheppard Mullin to create the ABLE Project, preparing officers to successfully intervene to prevent misconduct, avoid police mistakes, and promote officer health and wellness. ABLE builds upon training developed by Dr. Ervin Staub, the Founding Director of the UMass Amherst Psychology of Peace and Violence Program, to help police officers stop unnecessary harmful behavior by fellow officers. ABLE teaches officers how to successfully intervene and protects those who do intervene. It also authorizes and empowers law enforcement to intervene in another officer’s action regardless of their rank.

According to ABLE, the Urbana Police Department is the sixth law enforcement agency in the State of Illinois and among more than 330 law enforcement agencies across the United States that have implemented ABLE. More than 162,000 officers have been ABLE-trained across the United States. 1

The department is committed to the ABLE Project and will continue to train every officer annually on lesson plans created and provided by the ABLE Project.

For more information about the ABLE Project, please visit the following website: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/cics/able/.