Jessica Menna

Intro to Criminal Justice

Gregory Butler
05/09/2016
Do Cops Need College?
For my term paper, I have decided to address the following question,
In your opinion, do you believe that police officers should have a college
education? Does it make for a better officer? If you believe that officers
should have a college educationthen, what level of education? (i.e.,
Associate Degree, Bachelors Degree, Masters Degree?). How about for
SGT.s, LT.s, CAPT.s, and Chiefs? Would salaries need to be adjusted along
with any educational requirements? My answer is absolutely yes, for many
reasons. There are dozens of core college classes that would provide useful
tools in the law enforcement profession. According to my research, there are
ridiculously low instruction hours required in topics such as: stress
prevention/management (6 hours), problem solving (6 hours), conflict
management/meditation skills (8 hours), cultural diversity (8 hours), and
hate crimes (4 hours). (These numbers are averages according to
DiscoverPolicing.org) Police officers should also be required to take classes in
human psychology and sociology. I do think that the salaries would have to
be adjusted in order to reflect the educational requirements; but it would be
worth it to have better cops. I think there should be a requirement of at least

an associates degree to be an officer and at least a bachelors degree for

any rank higher than that.
An education is so important, especially for individuals who are
entrusted with making life and death decisions every day. I mean, 6 hours of
stress prevention and management? Really? This is not a feasible amount of
time to focus on such an important topic. Police officers carry lethal weapons
and shoot people every single day. They need to know more about stress
management than they can learn in 6 hours. I understand that stress comes
with the job, but these cops need to be better prepared to handle that stress.
They need an education for the safety of both themselves and the citizens of
this country that they are supposed to be protecting.
I feel as though conflict management is definitely in a police officers
job description. They are faced with challenges every day that require the
ability to manage conflicts. They may get a house call for domestic violence
and need to talk down a drunk spouse who is threatening to hurt their family.
They may need to deescalate a fight from happening between two or more
people. The might need to help a child understand why their parents did
something crazy. I dont know. What I do know, is that 8 hours is not enough
time to spend on learning these skills. That is less time than a single work
day for me. It just simply isnt a reasonable time frame.
Moving on to the topic of cultural diversity and hate crimes, this is a
big one for me. The US is one of the most, if not the most, culturally diverse

nations in the world. And hate crimes are happening every single day
whether they are based on: sexuality, race, ethnicity, religious preference,
etc. We simply cant afford to have prejudice, racist, homophobic, or
apathetic cops in this country. There are groups of individuals that are
targets of hate crimes and they need police officers who care about their life
and well-being, simply because they swore to do so for the citizens of
America. These people dont need these stigmas and labels thrown on them
so that they may become another statistic of a hate crime. We need police
officers who protect everyone equally.
I think it is so important for a police officer to understand basic human
psychology. They deal with criminals every single day and I believe it would
be extremely helpful for them to understand some of how their brains work
and why they work that way. I also think that cops should be required to take
sociology and social work classes so that they may have more empathy and
less prejudice towards those in poverty, and minorities. There are social work
classes that teach things such as de-escalation and forensic psychology that
I think would give officers some really useful tools that will allow them to
better do their jobs. Im not saying they need bachelors degrees in each of
these subjects, I think that 3-6 credit hours would suffice; but knowing that I
probably know more about psychology and sociology than my citys cops,
definitely doesnt help with my insomnia.
I understand that there may be some budget issues in requiring cops
to have an education and, therefore, needing to increase their salary.

However, I can think of two solutions to this problem. The first solution that
comes to mind is moving around some of our tax dollars to add to the police
budget. I personally cant think of too many better ways to spend our tax
dollars than ensuring we have educated law enforcement officers. The
second option, have less cops. I would much rather live in a city with a lower
amount of well-trained, well-educated cops than a city with a bunch of
uneducated ones. Requiring an education to become a cop would naturally
lower the number of cops anyways, in my opinion, so I think the latter is a
better option.
Personally, I feel as though an associates degree (on top of other
required training) would be satisfactory for a police officer. I would say they
need a PhD but that might make me sound unreasonable. Two years of
school is better than none. The reason I would say a bachelors degree
should be required for ranks higher than that of the average police officer, is
because it just makes sense that a higher-up position would require a higher
level of education. I think that a bachelors degree is satisfactory for any
position higher than an officer (plus the obvious years of required police
experience).
Education is so important in todays society. Some will argue that it is
more important to be street smart than it is to be book smart. But especially
in the case of police officers, I would say they are both extremely important
and vital to be able to properly perform the duties of the job. These classes
and trainings that I have mentioned above are not something that should be

taken lightly. We need to make sure that our officers are just as book smart
as they are street smart in order to be truly effective in their line of work.
Law enforcement officers put their lives and the lives of others on the line
every single day. I think that in itself is a pretty daunting task. One that
should only be bestowed upon those with the capacity to perform all
necessary functions of the job and I believe that includes getting a proper
education. We dont need police officers that are only able to do part of what
their job really requires. They need an education in order to understand
concepts that they would otherwise not. This is ultimately why I think a
college degree should be a requirement of anyone who wants to become a
law enforcement officer.

Sources
"Training/Academy Life." Discoverpolicing.org. Discoverpolicing.org,
n.d. Web. 09 May 2016. <http://discoverpolicing.org/what_does_take/?
fa=training_academy_life>.