The Georgia State Patrol is Hiring! Do You Have What It Takes To Be a Georgia State Trooper?

By Andrew Catania

It takes an enormous amount of patience to be in law enforcement these days. You have the defund the police movement, and the so-called social media experts that like to chime in on everything the Officer/Deputy/Trooper did wrong and how they’d do things. You’re called every name in the book, assaulted, shot at, verbally abused, etc. Recruitment is down across the board in law enforcement. People don’t join this profession to get rich, but in some areas of the country, the pay is unacceptable.

One agency that is looking for recruits has an amazing history, the complete backing of the Georgia Governors administration, and the highest starting pay in the State of Georgia, often praised by other agencies to be elite, is the Georgia State Patrol.

Since its inception in 1937, the GSP has been maintaining law and order, ensuring the safety of the public, and enforcing traffic laws on Georgia’s roads and highways.

The GSP is a division of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, an agency that oversees state law enforcement. The GSP’s primary responsibility is patrolling nearly 20,000 miles of Georgia’s roads, and 159 counties ensuring the safety and well-being of both residents and visitors. Their duties range from enforcing traffic laws to providing security at public events and state property.

One of the defining characteristics of the Georgia State Patrol is its versatility. Beyond traffic law enforcement, they’re trained in emergency response and are often the first on the scene during natural disasters, accidents, or terrorist threats. They’re the glue holding the state’s safety together, often working in conjunction with other agencies such as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation or local police departments.

Training for the Georgia State Patrol is rigorous and comprehensive. Each trooper undergoes an intensive 34-week training program at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, covering a wide range of topics from high-speed pursuit driving to criminal law.

I recently spoke with Captain Michael Burns of the Georgia State Patrol Public Information Office to discuss GSP’s recruitment for new Troopers.

Could you briefly describe the recruitment strategy for new troopers?

Captain Burns: Absolutely, our strategy is to attract individuals who are committed to public service, are of high moral character, and are willing to dedicate themselves to a career in law enforcement. We do this through various outreach programs, job fairs, and online campaigns.

If I am an out-of-state candidate that wants to join GSP but, I am a law enforcement officer out of state – do they have to go through the full academy with you guys or do you have a shortened one?

Captain Burns: There is a two-fold answer to this: So if you are coming from out of state, out of the state of Georgia, the Georgia P.OS.T. (Peace Officers Standards & Training), which certifies officers in the state, they do have an equivalency program, which you pass by taking some classes and some tests and you have posted credits in other agencies in other states, you have to be valid, active and no investigations – you have to be cleared of anything – and you apply through Georgia POST and go through their process to get recognized in the state of Georgia. Once that is done – we actually have a trooper right now who is only mandated – I mean, it’s a shortened, abbreviated school – It’s still school, but it is not 34 weeks. They already have the basic mandated stuff which is 404 hours – so we are able to cut that out because we don’t have to put them back through all of that stuff, learning about general law enforcement.

The last couple of schools have been kind of dual-purpose stuff like where we are taking in those who are mandated and those who are not mandated and once we get to the point where the trooper school is getting into the mandated stuff and those who are already mandated go to field training. They go and get their field training done, come back, pick up their cars and then they are actually assigned to a post to work under a post captain to make sure they are doing the job correctly. And then when the other portion of the class that was not mandated, once they make it through field training, the entire class comes back and has graduation together. 

Do Motor carrier officers and the Capital Police go through the same trooper school? 

Capt Burns: The Motor Carrier officers, when they go through their schools, still have the same mandated classes that you have to have to be a certified Peace officer in the state of Georgia. But, instead of going to trooper school where you would get trooper-specific classes, like crash investigations, they don’t get any of that. They go into National certification classes to be Motor Carrier Officers to enforce the Federal Motor Carrier laws. They do things that troopers don’t have to, like inspections. Capital police, go through mandates and then they come to our agency and do a field training program for capital police officers and that is their specific training. 

The academy is 34 weeks, 12 weeks of field training and the rest is through the academy. The Governor’s required courses on Community Police and de-escalation techniques?

Capt Burns: Correct. Every Peace Officer in the State of Georgia has to do it.

What is one thing that sets you apart from other agencies?

Capt Burns: One thing that sets us apart is the driver’s training.

I don’t know what other agencies put their officers through, but we get 104 hours of training and that’s just driving.  And again, that’s between PIT, high-speed track, nighttime driving, nighttime pursuits, and daytime pursuits. We have an Urban Course that you have to drive, plus the basic EVOC.

We spend a lot of time driving because that’s what we do. That’s our primary function, is driving in that car. Being involved in pursuits, we put a lot of time into it. Again, I can’t speak about other agencies because I don’t know what they do. I just know that 104 hours during the academy is a lot of time and that’s what we do. 

We also do periodically drivers’ in-service. We recently had a PIT in-service. A couple of years ago when there were more all-wheel drive and backup cameras in vehicles we put in more time in the high-speed tracks to kind of get a feel – to see what the car felt like because it does handle differently than a rear-wheel drive vehicle. We recently did a “backing’ course where we did back alleys and used the cameras as kind of a familiarization course to get used to them. 

Is there room for advancement in GSP?

Capt Burns: When they come out of Trooper school they go to one of 52 posts around the state. We have training units, there’s SWAT, we have Air Support… we have quite a few different divisions and directions officers can go. We have aviation and executive security for the Governor and LT Governor, speaker of the house. Its not just patrol, we have quite a few different divisions and directions you can go depending on what you want your career path to be. 

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a Georgia State Trooper, please visit gatrooper.com for more information.