Police Maturity: Does education play a role?

By Umalbnin Al Sultani
Criminal Justice
April 20, 2014



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In the United States, and around the world, there has always been a clash between
citizens and those appointed to safeguard them, but what causes this clash? Where do we
draw the line between being safe and being free, and how do we close this gap of
animosity between police and the citizens they are upheld to keep safe? One such idea is
the amount of education a police officer has compared to that of a police officer with only
a limited amount of education, but what does this do to cost, and how should this be
implemented into our law enforcement system today?

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the
process he does not become a monster.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In an article by Burns (2010), she states that high-school educated officers are more apt
to say, Im the law and I have the authority to make you do it, and Im going to put my
hands on you and make you do it. and that Officers with a four-year degree are more
skilled at resolving problems without having to resort to force. This is an interesting and
important observation. Citizens rely on sworn police officers to do the right thing and be
professional no matter the situation, but there are reports of police acting immature all
around us.

In one example, CBS 8 News (2014) reported an incident that took place in California
with a highway patrolman and a firefighter. The fire crews that responded to the accident
on the highway had blocked all lanes of traffic, which is the first responders discretion
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for safety. It was then, while fire fighters were attending the injured, that one of the
responding police officers asked a firefighter that was working the scene to move his fire
engine. The fire fighter responded with the answer, no, and that is when the police
officer detained the firefighter. According to CBS 8 News this was not the first incident
of the California State Highway Patrol doing such a thing. This relates to what Burns had
stated about how police officers act without a higher education compared to those that do.
Even though the firefighter was not charged with a crime, and was released a half hour
later, this shows the wrongful use of power and intimidation used when the police officer
did not get his way. The California Highway Patrols minimum requirements for their
officers are a minimum of a high school diploma or GED, and a minimum of twenty
years of age.

This minimum requirement for police departments in the United States is common. Again
these individuals are still in their adolescents. They are kids and have not matured enough
to handle the domestic balance of social tranquility and have not been introduced to a
broadening of morals and standards around the diversity of society outside of High
School and their parents home. These adolescent police then are required to be a
mediator for the balance of different social beliefs, morals, laws, and ideologies.
So does education make for a better police officer? According to Martin (2012), Some
research indicates that a college education allows officers to perform a wider range of
tasks and have fewer complaints filed against them education improves mediation
skills; sensitivity to diversity; communication skills, both oral and written; open-
mindedness; critical thinking and problem solving; and technology skills. It is clearly
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obvious that in any profession a higher education can only improve oneself and the
company they work for.

If the highway patrolman had taken into account that the fire fighter he was asking was
tending to the injured and searching the vehicles for other wounded on the scene, he may
have professionally dealt with the lack of concern for the police officers duty to maintain
fluidity of traffic at a later time without the use of handcuffs and publicly humiliating the
fire fighter in front of news cameras and fellow fire fighters. This is something that could
have been implemented the right way through the chain of command, but to take a first
responder away from his duties of tending to the injured is a clear violation of ethics.

If a higher education makes for a better officer, then what level of that education should
the officer have? Again, as a common knowledge, the more education you have the better
you are, but this is where it gets difficult. Most police departments have limited funding
and this shows in an employees salary. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(2014), Kansass nonmetropolitan area had an annual mean wage of $35,080 dollars,
while Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA Metropolitan Division had an annual mean
wage of $86,280 dollars. The funding is not there to payback the higher cost of having an
officer with college in the rural areas, but if you take into account the population and
diversity of a large city compared to that a small rural area, there is less social diversity
and complexity to deal with. A police officer without an education in the rural areas may
be well equipped mentally to handle the minor differences in calls.

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With this said, should college education be important for Law Enforcements upper
management like the Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains and Chiefs? A good saying in the
military is that your subordinates reflect your leadership. If you have poor leadership, you
will have poor subordinates. It would be important to have leadership that is educated,
but this brings up another concern, and that is what level of education should the upper
management have? There have been numerous studies that show the more college
education an individual has the better they do. Every police department should strive hard
to have their upper management officers with at least a four-year degree.

Education does play a role in the growth of an individuals maturity, social diversity,
social morals and values, and their ethics. Any Law Enforcement Agency should
continually strive to have officers formerly educated with a degree and should pay
accordingly. This will not only give the Law Enforcement agency a better name, better
officers to represent the agency, but also save in spending time and money fighting
complaints and law suits against the agency. The studies of this connection between
college and the police officers behavior are becoming more popular, and more and more
police departments are applying the requirement for college into their agencies. One day
all major metropolitan law enforcement agencies will have a requirement of an associates
degree or better.








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References

Burns, M. (2010, September 2). Cops and College: Do Police Need Book Smarts?.
Pacific Standard: The Science of Society. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from
http://www.psmag.com/legal-affairs/cops-and-college-do-police-need-
book-smarts- 21852/


CBS8 (2014, February 4). Officials: Dispute between CHP officer, firefighter an
'isolated incident'. . CBS 8 News. Retrieved April 19, 2014, from
http://www.cbs8.com/story/24637357/firefighter-detained-by-chp-after-
dispute-at-crash-site

Martin, EdD, R. M. (2012). Advancing Police Professionalism Through Higher
Education. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 2, 76-81. Retrieved April 19,
2014, from http://www.police-
association.org/library/articles/Advancing%20Police%20Professionalism%20by
%20Richard%20H%20Martin.pdf

United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2014, April 1).
Occupational Employment and Wages May 2013: 33-3051 Police and Sheriff's
Patrol Officers. . Retrieved April 19, 2014, from
http://www.bls.gov/OES/current/oes333051.htm