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The Pros And Cons Of An Educated Police Force

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In 1972, the American Bar Association wrote “police need personnel in their ranks who have the characteristics a college education seeks to foster: intellectual curiosity, analytical ability, articulateness, and a capacity to relate the events of the day to the social, political, and historical context in which they occur” (Peak, 2008, p. 384). Much of the debate concerning education in policing became mainstream with the civil rights movement at which time law enforcement was center stage in what some perceived as persecution of African Americans in the South. Fast forward 45 years and law enforcement is once again faced with the real or perceived issues of persecuting those within the minority communities. It was believed in the late 1960’s …show more content…
The idea of an educated police force was formed in the early 1900s and has continued to have a place in every reform era since. Paynich (2010) points out that each of the national commissions on law enforcement that have been convened since 1967 has recommended that all police officers have college degrees. She goes on to write “having college educated officers has also been a strong recommendation of nearly every national commission and is of such importance, many agencies nationwide offer a variety of incentives to its officers to pursue higher education” (Paynich, 2010, p. 8). From the 1970s through and until the turn of the 21st Century, the discussion turned from educating law enforcement officers to how much education and at what cost. In 1992, Tyre and Braunstein conducted studies of police officers in Florida and concluded that those with an associate’s degree outperformed those that had no college education. Their study went further in concluding that “respondents with a bachelor’s degree or higher scored better in almost all performance indicator …show more content…
The perception of failing police/community relations, the advent of the 24/7 cable news cycles, and some unfortunate use of force issues ushered in a revived call for police oversight. With this increased and relentless barrage of news stories, law enforcement careers fell out of favor for college graduates and those pursuing formal education. The availability of viable candidates has shrunk to near crisis levels while the calls for additional police training, education, and reform have grown louder. President Barack Obama convened a group of public leaders to address these problems. This group took on the name of “The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” and was tasked with making recommendations for policing policies ranging from building trust and legitimacy within the community to the increased use of technology in policing. Out of this task force’s recommendations was a national push for increased diversity within the ranks of law enforcement as well as increased transparency in law enforcement operations (The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015). After the release of the 21st Century report, law enforcement administrators now had to consider policy and budgetary impacts of the recommended technologies, new strategies for the recruitment and hiring of qualified minorities, and increasing training in de-escalation techniques

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