Cops: Bad Apples or Diseased Orchards?
I’m putting on the kid gloves and walking on eggshells for this blog. It will be a difficult one to write. I have several good friends who work in law enforcement. I personally knew an officer who was killed in the line of duty and another officer who was severely injured after responding to a dangerous altercation. I recognize the heroism with which many officers conduct themselves. They play a vital role in maintaining a safe, societal structure. They are asked to do more and more with less and less. They are on the front lines of criminal justice and, as such, in many ways they are the face of it.
But there are problems.
Those problems begin with training or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. Police in the US have markedly fewer hours of training than almost anywhere in the developed world and it shows. There are no national standards for training police officers. In many states once you have graduated from high school, turned 18 and obtain a driver’s license they can slap body armor on you, issue you a badge and send you out on the street to serve and protect. In some 30 states you are not even required to have basic training for the first six months or more on the job. In many states cosmetologists and barbers require more hours of training than police. Experts show deep concern regarding the paltry hours devoted to training in many areas. One example is mental health issues. This applies not only to police interactions with the public, but also to police officers themselves. Police are five times more likely to die from suicide than from homicide.
In the US police kill more citizens per capita than any other developed nation. Could this be connected to the lack of training? A US Bureau of Justice Statistics report determined that police training allocates over three times more hours for firearms training than for deescalation training. It appears more hours of training are devoted to effective use of deadly force than to communicating with the public.
One last observation concerning police training surrounds the idea of commitment to the pursuit of a career. Most professions require formal education beyond high school and/or specialized training for certification or licensing. This education is typically paid for by the student and it is a financial and logistical burden to achieve credentials for entry into their chosen field. Not so with a career in law enforcement. Certainly there are members of law enforcement who hold associate degrees on up to PhDs. However, training for entry into law enforcement is almost exclusively paid for by departments or agencies. Not only that, but usually trainees receive a salary during training. Some would argue that law enforcement training is grueling, that students are tased, sprayed with pepper spray, and challenged physically, and I agree… these, too, are areas for possible reconsideration in the curriculum. A certain level of physical fitness seems relevant to police work. But if it only applies to training and is dropped thereafter what purpose does it truly serve? A US Department of Justice study showed on average 86% of recruits complete the academy. Overall, compared to other careers there is a pretty low bar regarding entry into a career in law enforcement.
Other problems with law enforcement exist. But it is clear that training requirements are abysmal and reform in this area is of fundamental importance. When false convictions are paired with police killings perhaps the conclusion could be drawn that training should focus more on how police use their brains and less on how they use interrogations, pepper spray, batons, tasers, choke holds, stun grenades and guns.