5 ms·

I'd prefer police officers with EMT (and preferably paramedic) training to those with four-year sociology degrees. Knowledge of DNA and computer forensic metho

I'd prefer police officers with EMT (and preferably paramedic) training to those with four-year sociology degrees. Knowledge of DNA and computer forensic methods and necessities, though, would probably improve their chances of getting promoted, as would legal training. However, those skills could easily be learned at two-year community college progams. All in all, I think this kind of focus would lead to a more professional police force.

Arainach 4y ago
I disagree. Having done a minor in criminal justice, officers, lawmakers, and others involved in the justice system could absolutely benefit from exposure to sociology and academic CJ. The American "justice" system is a travesty and continues following methods that we've known not to work for many decades. To fix the system we need the folks inside it to understand the system. Part of that is education. Part of that is hiring officers who understand the system and want to improve and protect rather than a jobs system for those who want to exercise power over others.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> To fix the system we need the folks inside it to understand the system. Nope. The American justice system does not control itself. It is bound by laws and codes of practice dictated to it by outsiders, those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember. It is as bad as it is because the general public honestly want it that way. Rough and violent justice is baked into American culture as much as guns and alcohol. >>Part of that is education. I agree, but it isn't the people in the system that need an education. It is the voting public outside who need the better understanding.
  - txru 4y ago
    I think a few things happened in 2020 that show that at least some of the general public are unhappy and want changes...
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember Who are you referring to?
    - sandworm101 4y ago
      Every community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge. Every pundit who says that person X is "soft" on crime and person Y is "hard" as if that makes any difference. Every idiot out there who wants drug dealers locked up for life yet is unable to address their own addition to prescriptions. Every armchair lawyer who will spend hours outlining how judges should rule on hypothetical cases, but has never spent a day inside an actual courtroom. Every idiot who thinks his speeding ticket as important as a murder trial. And every one of the to-be sovereign citizens at YouTube university. After than, then we go after the flat earthers.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge Have you been to these? I have, in states red and blue. It's rarely a rah rah. Instead, people have complaints about specific categories of crimes, usually ones relevant to the community. The question is less locking people up than catching them. Policing. Sentencing is a separate system from policing.
        sandworm101 4y ago
        >> Sentencing is a separate system from policing. Again, not in reality. Absent unlimited resources, street-level police determine which crimes are "policed" based on the severity of associated punishments. Change the punishment for drug dealing from a prison sentence to a minor fine and police will all but stop hunting drug dealers. Start sentencing jaywalkers to prison time and you will see cops at every pedestrian crossing. Sentencing is the guide by which police determine which laws the public most wants to see enforced.
- catiopatio 4y ago
  Hiring people from a sociology/social justice background would just mean the same abuses of power, but different targets. Policing has gone in this direction in the UK, and now you have mothers being arrested in front of their children after “misgendering” someone online: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-stand-with-kate-scottow/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-stand-with-kate-scotto... > St Albans Magistrates’ Court found her guilty, under the Communications Act (2003), of using a public communications network to “cause annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety”. Fortunately, she eventually won on appeal and her conviction was overturned, but the process itself was the punishment. Police need less power, not more sociology degrees.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    That sounds more like a problem with the law than with the police.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      Policing isn’t independent of the law or legal culture, and police have enormous discretion in how they choose to apply the law. There’s also the entire issue of “non-criminal bias incidents”: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5238724/hate-crime-police-non-criminal-incidents-euan-mccolm-opinion/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5238...
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Americans are normally the ones to myopically reduce the world's issues to their own, but sometimes the British are not to be bested!
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      I’m an American aware of how this idea has played out elsewhere.
- chongli 4y ago
  The US has a fairly large political contingent that believes in retributive justice, not rehabilitative or restorative justice. In a lot of places the police have a culture of the "warrior mentality" and well-meaning new officers are either brought in line or driven out of the profession. This is compounded by the huge numbers of private and illegal/black market firearms on the street which make policing extremely dangerous. The combination reinforces the warrior and the retributive justice cultures alike.
  - elcritch 4y ago
    Note I don’t believe policing is in even the top 25 most dangerous jobs in the USA. I’m not sure the “extremely “ dangerous applies when driving a truck or most construction jobs are more dangerous.
    - chongli 4y ago
      This is similar to the issue with statistics around shark attacks. Sure, policing overall is pretty safe because 99.9% of the time you're not trying to arrest an armed and dangerous suspect. Sharks are safe too because 99.9+% of the time people aren't even in the ocean where they might encounter sharks. But if it's your job to go out into the ocean and interact with sharks face-to-face, those encounters are way more dangerous than the general statistics would have us believe. Same goes for police when they have to deal with an active shooter situation. That's what I mean by "extremely dangerous". Compared to Canada or most of Europe, the US has vastly more active shooter situations, and at least some of that can be attributed to the availability of firearms.
alistairSH 4y ago
Mixed feelings... police in the US are woefully/tragically undertrained relative to police in Europe. 3-4 months is typical for a police academy in the US. Plus 6 months or so with a field training officer for basic on-job training. Compared to 2.5 years of the same in Germany. College may not be the right answer, but the current system of very little training isn't working.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  If they could put the money and time they spent on college into actual on-the-job training/academy maybe it would. State law enforcement academies are really only using college degrees as a filter that the person is capable of attending class, learning, and passing exams. That's what graduating high school used to show. But now nobody doesn't graduate high school, unless they drop out.
- htek 4y ago
  Also, tragically, people go to college wanting to get into law enforcement are working at cross purposes to what police departments want to hire: less intelligent cops. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Being a cop in Germany is much easier and less risky job than in US, because they have 50% more cops per capita while having something like 15% the crime rate of US. This means that, as a very rough estimate, there is something like 16 times more crimes per cop in US than in Germany. This is made even worse by things like US criminal being much more insane and erratic than German ones (Germany has a more collectivist, order-oriented culture, and will institutionalize miscreants much faster and for much less serious offenses than US will), and case overload forcing US cops to focus on the worst cases and worst offenders first. For this reason, more people in Germany will put up with strict credential requirements and low pay than in US. To make police force more professional in the US, we first need to stop most crime, and for that, we need to hire a lot of police (to bring the crimes-per-cop ratio closer to low crime countries), and massively increase incarceration of repeat offenders, who are responsible for the bulk of the crime. It will be extremely hard to both hire more police and also to make standards higher: you’ll end up with highly professional cops who are too busy to help you unless you’re being actively murdered.
fooker 4y ago
Are you perhaps assuming that such a sociology curriculum will always be a modern woke one you agree with? What happens when bigots get that curriculum changed to suit their agenda? What happens in countries where the current social norm is "gay people don't exist" ?
gregraygun 4y ago
I honestly believe 90% of our police in the U.S. could not pass an EMT course.

Arainach 4y ago

I disagree. Having done a minor in criminal justice, officers, lawmakers, and others involved in the justice system could absolutely benefit from exposure to sociology and academic CJ. The American "justice" system is a travesty and continues following methods that we've known not to work for many decades. To fix the system we need the folks inside it to understand the system. Part of that is education. Part of that is hiring officers who understand the system and want to improve and protect rather than a jobs system for those who want to exercise power over others.

sandworm101 4y ago
>> To fix the system we need the folks inside it to understand the system. Nope. The American justice system does not control itself. It is bound by laws and codes of practice dictated to it by outsiders, those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember. It is as bad as it is because the general public honestly want it that way. Rough and violent justice is baked into American culture as much as guns and alcohol. >>Part of that is education. I agree, but it isn't the people in the system that need an education. It is the voting public outside who need the better understanding.
- txru 4y ago
  I think a few things happened in 2020 that show that at least some of the general public are unhappy and want changes...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember Who are you referring to?
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    Every community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge. Every pundit who says that person X is "soft" on crime and person Y is "hard" as if that makes any difference. Every idiot out there who wants drug dealers locked up for life yet is unable to address their own addition to prescriptions. Every armchair lawyer who will spend hours outlining how judges should rule on hypothetical cases, but has never spent a day inside an actual courtroom. Every idiot who thinks his speeding ticket as important as a murder trial. And every one of the to-be sovereign citizens at YouTube university. After than, then we go after the flat earthers.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge Have you been to these? I have, in states red and blue. It's rarely a rah rah. Instead, people have complaints about specific categories of crimes, usually ones relevant to the community. The question is less locking people up than catching them. Policing. Sentencing is a separate system from policing.
      - sandworm101 4y ago
        >> Sentencing is a separate system from policing. Again, not in reality. Absent unlimited resources, street-level police determine which crimes are "policed" based on the severity of associated punishments. Change the punishment for drug dealing from a prison sentence to a minor fine and police will all but stop hunting drug dealers. Start sentencing jaywalkers to prison time and you will see cops at every pedestrian crossing. Sentencing is the guide by which police determine which laws the public most wants to see enforced.
catiopatio 4y ago
Hiring people from a sociology/social justice background would just mean the same abuses of power, but different targets. Policing has gone in this direction in the UK, and now you have mothers being arrested in front of their children after “misgendering” someone online: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-stand-with-kate-scottow/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-stand-with-kate-scotto... > St Albans Magistrates’ Court found her guilty, under the Communications Act (2003), of using a public communications network to “cause annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety”. Fortunately, she eventually won on appeal and her conviction was overturned, but the process itself was the punishment. Police need less power, not more sociology degrees.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  That sounds more like a problem with the law than with the police.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    Policing isn’t independent of the law or legal culture, and police have enormous discretion in how they choose to apply the law. There’s also the entire issue of “non-criminal bias incidents”: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5238724/hate-crime-police-non-criminal-incidents-euan-mccolm-opinion/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5238...
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Americans are normally the ones to myopically reduce the world's issues to their own, but sometimes the British are not to be bested!
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    I’m an American aware of how this idea has played out elsewhere.
chongli 4y ago
The US has a fairly large political contingent that believes in retributive justice, not rehabilitative or restorative justice. In a lot of places the police have a culture of the "warrior mentality" and well-meaning new officers are either brought in line or driven out of the profession. This is compounded by the huge numbers of private and illegal/black market firearms on the street which make policing extremely dangerous. The combination reinforces the warrior and the retributive justice cultures alike.
- elcritch 4y ago
  Note I don’t believe policing is in even the top 25 most dangerous jobs in the USA. I’m not sure the “extremely “ dangerous applies when driving a truck or most construction jobs are more dangerous.
  - chongli 4y ago
    This is similar to the issue with statistics around shark attacks. Sure, policing overall is pretty safe because 99.9% of the time you're not trying to arrest an armed and dangerous suspect. Sharks are safe too because 99.9+% of the time people aren't even in the ocean where they might encounter sharks. But if it's your job to go out into the ocean and interact with sharks face-to-face, those encounters are way more dangerous than the general statistics would have us believe. Same goes for police when they have to deal with an active shooter situation. That's what I mean by "extremely dangerous". Compared to Canada or most of Europe, the US has vastly more active shooter situations, and at least some of that can be attributed to the availability of firearms.

alistairSH 4y ago

Mixed feelings... police in the US are woefully/tragically undertrained relative to police in Europe. 3-4 months is typical for a police academy in the US. Plus 6 months or so with a field training officer for basic on-job training. Compared to 2.5 years of the same in Germany. College may not be the right answer, but the current system of very little training isn't working.

SoftTalker 4y ago
If they could put the money and time they spent on college into actual on-the-job training/academy maybe it would. State law enforcement academies are really only using college degrees as a filter that the person is capable of attending class, learning, and passing exams. That's what graduating high school used to show. But now nobody doesn't graduate high school, unless they drop out.
htek 4y ago
Also, tragically, people go to college wanting to get into law enforcement are working at cross purposes to what police departments want to hire: less intelligent cops. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/
xyzzyz 4y ago
Being a cop in Germany is much easier and less risky job than in US, because they have 50% more cops per capita while having something like 15% the crime rate of US. This means that, as a very rough estimate, there is something like 16 times more crimes per cop in US than in Germany. This is made even worse by things like US criminal being much more insane and erratic than German ones (Germany has a more collectivist, order-oriented culture, and will institutionalize miscreants much faster and for much less serious offenses than US will), and case overload forcing US cops to focus on the worst cases and worst offenders first. For this reason, more people in Germany will put up with strict credential requirements and low pay than in US. To make police force more professional in the US, we first need to stop most crime, and for that, we need to hire a lot of police (to bring the crimes-per-cop ratio closer to low crime countries), and massively increase incarceration of repeat offenders, who are responsible for the bulk of the crime. It will be extremely hard to both hire more police and also to make standards higher: you’ll end up with highly professional cops who are too busy to help you unless you’re being actively murdered.

fooker 4y ago

Are you perhaps assuming that such a sociology curriculum will always be a modern woke one you agree with? What happens when bigots get that curriculum changed to suit their agenda? What happens in countries where the current social norm is "gay people don't exist" ?

gregraygun 4y ago

I honestly believe 90% of our police in the U.S. could not pass an EMT course.