William Bailey

English1010
7/23/15
Joining the conversation

Police Education
Almost anyone can join the police force with as little as a high school
diploma, physical aptitude, and some know how. With this simplistic criteria
it allows for the police work force to be open for the corrupt or uneducated.
There are many discussions on whether or not the police need to obtain a
higher education before they are eligible to become an officer. Current
research on police has delivered numerous results. One study that is
currently in progress is logging the actions and job fulfillments of officers
who have obtained different levels of education and how it affects their work
with children and adults. Departments are also attempting to have training
activities with police officers. Departments believe by having police officers
role play several situations they will know how to correctly address the
situation when they come across it while on duty. If we can affect the
younger generation by educating our police force; we can help the public
view of the police and, weed out more corrupt police.
Over the last thirty years the influence of higher education on police
performance has been studied at length. A good amount of the early studies
were on police officer attitudes. Officers who obtained a higher degree were
able to have a strong authoritarianism compared to those who did not obtain
a degree. Multiple studies have also proven that officers who take the time

to educate themselves on society are more open minded to change and

differences in people. In the end of the study the results showed those
without a degree arrested more citizens with different ethnic and racial
backgrounds because of personal beliefs; those who were more educated
proved to have higher levels of professionalism and higher standards of
service towards their communities. Jennifer Mains found in one of her studies
that Officers who received four year degrees received a few or no
complaints during their career. (Bostrom, (2005, p.1) this could be a big
help especially from the recent fingers pointed at the police for accounts of
being racists or disorderly conduct. If officers have the educational aptitude
to really deal personally and professionally with adults and children.
Institution for the Study of the Prevention of Violence (ISPV) was
started on June 10th in the year 2000. Since then, many other ISPV centers
have been opened around the world. The goals of these centers are mostly
for children from birth to 17 years of age. If the child witnesses violence they
will have someone to talk to and somewhere to go to for safety. Police
officers are the main referral source for the children. Officers are required to
go through training and have role playing sessions to know how to respond
to a child in need. Police officers with a higher education were able to pick up
on how to help the children before the training was half-way completed.
Officers without a higher education often needed extra training and
mentoring with another officer before they were able to do the job by
themselves.

The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice believes that

requiring a college degree is the first step in making the best political
decision for the city. (Mayo, 2006, p.1) If someone would like to become an
officer, that person should be very educated in the field and trained for as
many situations that they might come across. We are giving officers the right
to deprive another human being of their liberty and in other instances their
life. We also give officers weapons and tools to take care of problems that
can possibly harm a community. By doing this, we are giving police officers
our greatest faith and trust that they will not abuse these powers. We cannot
give these powers to just anyone or the entire police system will quickly
become corrupt and many innocent people will be hurt; when the original
purpose for police officers is to protect, defend, and serve their community.
In a community; police should be viewed as figures of authority and
justice. It has seemed in recent events such as The Ferguson Incident that
police have come under a close eye of the world. There have been recent
articles that have put the NYPD in a corner saying their officers dont have
dispute resolution skills. This directly affects their community policing and
the ability to maintain order. Regardless if these accusations are false or true
they are getting a large amount of negative attention. There are many rules
and regulations that keep officers from hurting their image and the image of
the department. If we can go to the beginning of the development of the
police and give them the proper training in the right places we could avoid
more negative tendencies and keep streets more safe.

One of the many suggestions is to do more training on dispute

resolution, like I mentioned before. The ability to handle numerous
interpersonal disputes requires lots of training and practice. This is another
skill that should be treated the same as the amount of physical training and
firearm training that the police need to go through to keep them safe. The
ability to de-escalate a situation can be just as powerful if not more, as a
taser or gun. In a heated situation it is an officers job to interact with
disputants in such a way that the situation does not become worse (Cooper,
1999, p. 1) like mentions in his article. Again this is why it is so important for
officers to be educated or trained in handling situations with their words just
as much as they are trained with guns.
There are many who argue that those who graduate with a bachelors
of art degree have better problem solving skills. These graduates learn to
look at situations through different viewpoints; they also learn how different
perceptions can be an influence on someones behavior. This undoubtedly
increased their comfort level when they had to face a new situation; most of
these graduate had a new mindset that the world flowed together, but there
had to be many different types of people in the world for everything to work
correctly. It was also proven officers who graduated with a Bachelors of
Science degree were skilled with finding facts and proving them to be true.
More often than not those who graduated with a Bachelors of Science had
more citizens resisting arrest or confrontation. Instead of getting more
personal with a person, such as the criminal, they would only gather the

facts they needed and no longer speak with them. They only took what they
needed and thought of a solution immediately after. Instead of thinking that
the officer acts in a different manner is not from the degree they choose, but
by the type of personality they have. The individual most likely has a
personality that matched the major they chose, so after they graduate, their
personality is enhanced while on duty.
Whether or not police officers should be required to obtain a higher
education is an ongoing debate. Even if they are required to obtain a higher
degree, there will be a new issue on what they need to learn. More times
than not, it depends on the officer who is being researched, other times it
does depend on what they have learned in school. Being able to learn about
the different types of people in the world and role playing different scenarios
is extremely beneficial to an officer whether they be new in the field or not.
As the ABA said the police need personnel in their ranks who have the
characteristics a college education seeks to foster. (Mayo, 2006, p.1) This
would count towards all of the characteristics that a citizen would require of
an officer protecting them. It should be required police officers go through
extensive training and have a higher education if we are to put our greatest
faith and trust into the officers who are to protect, defend, and serve our
communities.

Work Cited
Cooper, C. (1999, July 10). Mediation Training to Improve Police Social
Interaction Skills. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
Flannery, D., & Singer, M. (2014). The Begun Center for Violence
Prevention Research and Education at Case Western Reserve University.
Research on Social Work Practice, 278-285.

Manis, J., Archbold, C., & Hassell, K. (n.d.). Exploring the impact of
police officer education level on allegations of police misconduct.
International Journal of Police Science & Management, 509-523.
Paoline, E., Terrill, W., & Rossler, M. (2014). Higher Education, College
Degree Major, and Police Occupational Attitudes. Journal of Criminal Justice
Education, 49-73.
Roberg, R., & Bonn, S. (n.d.). Higher education and policing: Where are
we now? Policing Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies &
Management, 469-486.
Mayo, L. (2006, August 6). Police Chief Magazine - View Article.
Retrieved July 23, 2015.
Bostrom, M. (2005, October 10). Police Chief Magazine - View Article.
Retrieved July 23, 2015.