Baltimore officials have scheduled a hearing on police training standards amid concerns that too many recruits lack a fundamental understanding of constitutional principles regarding police powers.

The hearing was scheduled after Sgt. Joshua Rosenblatt, head of legal instruction at the police academy, told The Baltimore Sun that recruits were being pushed through the academy despite lacking a basic understanding of the laws governing constitutional policing, such as the need for probable cause to arrest someone.

Rosenblatt said 17 of 50 recruits in the latest academy class had repeatedly failed tests on legal standards and lacked a basic understanding of certain principles. He said the recruits eventually passed, but only after the academy removed him and other legal instructors from the testing process and reintroduced an old, less-rigorous multiple choice test.