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College Education for Police Officers

Hanna Vance

Criminal Justice 1010

Salt Lake Community College

College Education for Police Officers

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As a police officer, you must protect the community by enforcing laws to keep

everyone safe. To become a police officer, you only need a minimum of a high school education.

In today’s society, we prepare our whole lives to work. We send our kids to elementary school,

middle school, and high school, and it’s all preparing them for college or their future careers.

There are many different benefits to attending college and graduating with a degree. Whether

that may be an associates, bachelors, or masters degree. To become a police officer you only

need a minimum of high school education.

The question is do police officers need a college education in addition to high school?

Overall, police officers should receive a college education for the fact that it would help in

gaining lifelong skills, assist them in the workplace, and would give them a better understanding

of the world around them. There are too many cops who are not practicing these qualities in the

workplace.

As a citizen of a community, it is important to bring your strengths and traits to better

society as a whole. When you attend and participate in acquiring a college education you can

develop many important skills and qualities that will benefit you as a person. Many qualities are

expected of police officers and many classes can help further develop those traits. For example,

all police officers need to have good communication skills. There is a wide variety of college

classes that provide strategies and techniques that are used for communication. If an officer is

unable to communicate correctly, there will be many issues concerning the sender and receiver of

the conversations. (Flavin 2017)

Another trait that all police officers should have is critical thinking skills. A definition

of critical thinking is when the person thinking can skillfully solve and take upon the challenge

of understanding their subject, content, or problem, they are observing. (Richard 2008) By taking
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classes you can further increase your critical thinking skills. Examples such as poetry, analyzing

evidence, and making inferences in all the different classes students take will increase the skills

of those students who are participating. (Jacobs 2013)

There are many benefits of people who are very good critical thinkers and that’s why we

need the people who protect us to be able to master this skill. Police officers need to be able to

think critically about the situations they face. There will be times when things get unexpected

and the officer is faced with many instant choices and problems. All the classes taken required to

receive a degree will further increase those skills. That is why officers should take action and

receive a college education.

Another trait that can be learned from taking college classes is the ability to multi-task.

You can learn work ethic and how to manage multiple things at one time. For those who take

many college classes at a time, they will know how to prepare for assignments, tests, and

quizzes. As a cop, they will have to juggle many tasks at once at the best of their capability and

be able to handle stressful situations, at times, all at once.

To be just a police officer they should at least receive an education of an associate's

degree with classes such as communication, critical thinking, and multi-tasking, and so on. If

they want to make their way up the ranks they should acquire a bachelor's degree, and so on to a

master's degree. It would be fair to pay those who have gone to school and spent time learning

about skills and information that will help them perform better as a cop. So as you spend more

time putting time and effort into receiving an education you will also receive more pay in salary.

Getting a college education isn't just to learn the information, you also learn many other

skills that will help you develop good traits in the workplace that we need our police officers to
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have to protect the citizens of our communities.

There have been many issues with cops and civilians in today’s world. If police officers

were more educated in studies such as classes teaching about diversity, ethics, and law

enforcement society would be better as a whole. To be a good cop they need to be aware of all

the different parts of their jobs. When they step outside of the classroom from a college

education and apply the knowledge and information they have received, they will be able to

better satisfy the needs of everyone in their communities. Though if a cop is not informed, he or

she may sadly not represent all the qualities that the police force wants. For example, there was a

case between the Salt Lake Police Department and a nurse from the University of Utah Hospital

where the cop was uneducated on the new policies of drawing blood from patients without a

warrant. The situation was handled very badly and could have been prevented if the police

officer was correctly informed on the situation.

Mainly everyone else in the communities that they work in will most likely have received

a college education of some sort. Every major profession besides police requires a college

education of some sort. (Lynch 1996) If we have officers who are not as educated they will not

be able to adequately perform the tasks of their jobs on a day to day basis. Officers who receive a

college education would be able to not only practice their skills on the job but also between other

cops.

There needs to be diversity in the workplace and there are many college classes that

would be beneficial to those who are going to practice it. When you come together and have

diversity among cops you can strengthen a community by treating everyone equally and

specifically giving positions to those who have proved that they are capable of the job. It would

be beneficial to hire cops who have taken classes and earned a college education to fill those
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spots. As you do so, you would start to see big changes happen.

Out of all the police officers who were arrested for corrupt behaviors in the workplace, 86

percent would have not been able to be a police officer if they had been required to have a

college education in the first place. (Lynch 1996) By enforcing and making college education

required, it would help stop corrupt cops from entering and destroying unity between their

community and the police force.

Police officers should have a college education because it helps develop important

qualities, helps them have a better understanding of the world, and create a foundation of success

in the workplace. As you go to college and receive a degree you are learning essential

information and skills to make you a better overall person. We need more police officers who can

think critically, solve problems, learn hard work, all to help them become more educated and

efficient in their careers. If it was required for officers to have a college education, our

communities would become stronger, diverse, and unified as one.

Reference Page

Flavin B., (2017), 8 Often Overlooked Qualities You Need to Be a Great Police Officer,

https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/overlooked-qualities-of-police-

officer/

Jacobs A., (2013), How do Colleges Develop Critical Thinkers,

https://www.excelsior.edu/article/how-do-colleges-develop-critical-thinkers/
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Lynch W., (1996), John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City

The University of New York, Published in the NY Post / WED FEB 14th, 1996 / Post

Letters, p. 26

Richard P., (2008), Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical

Thinking

Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press