General Santander National Police Academy
The institution was created by the Colombian National Police with the main function of instructing recruits to become officers, enlisted, agents, detectives and other technical and administrative services.
Gómez also initiates a selection process to hire highly prepared Professors from the Law Faculty of the National University of Colombia, selecting Copete Lizarralde, Arturo Valencia Zea, Adolfo Vélez Echeverri, Augusto Sastre, Alfonso Ruiz Ojeda, Moisés Spath Nerel, Guillermo Meléndez Ramírez, José Alejandro Mantilla and Guillermo Fernández.
Luis Alberto Pinzón directed the Studies Prefecture along with Ricardo Rodríguez Aranza, Francisco Bruno, Miguel Lleras Pizarro, Roberto Pineda Castillo, Ernesto Antolínez, José Manuel Mosquera, Enrique Vargas and Jorge Valencia.
These detectives were sorted internally into different promotional categories taking in consideration the time in grade, professional aptitudes, instruction and conduct observed in the institution.
In 1939 the Alumni Department is created to lead the preparation, formation and education of the National Police regular personnel and improve administrative and technical services.
The General Santander Academy is divided into four faculties: Its mission is to develop undergraduate and graduate programs to form ideal and efficient professional policemen that can effectively contribute to the benefit of the community.
[1] The General Santander Academy holds strategic alliances primarily with the United States agencies Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) due to the recent War on Drugs and the implementation of the Plan Colombia which has become part of the War on terror and because of its experience on these it has become as one of the most apt educational centers for law enforcement in Latin America.
Other countries also hold exchange programs with the Academy, most of them from Latin America; Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
