Police Education

I heard what I'm pretty sure is a funny parody on the news today (odd, right?) about a judge who is so disappointed with the language abilities of police officers that he plans on throwing out cases where the officers cannot explain themselves in proper English. They brought on a parody of a police officer who speaks inadequate English (I'm trying to be nice) who claims to have started taking night classes to improve his language skills.

While that's all quite funny and cute, there is an underlying issue there that doesn't seem to get much media exposure. There has been a shift in the perception of police officers in the past few decades which, for the most part, means that most officers do not have a university education. Now, I am by far not one to argue that a university education ought to be mandatory for officers, nor do I think it would necessarily produce better officers, but there is an issue here. Why aren't the university educated going into policing? Simple, the stereotype that only people who can't make it in life past their high school glory years enter the field in an attempt to recapture the power they once held over those now more successful.

But why? Police officers are very well compensated, they get lots of time off work, excellent benefits, and the sky is the limit in terms of growth opportunities - especially if you prove to be highly intelligent. Ironically, this field where most people go into as a fall-back to other plans gone awry, puts exceptional preference on the university educated, and offers those much greater variety in terms of cases and an accelerated career path.

And there's never going to be a time where there will be too many officers. Really. Unless someone out there still believes in world peace.

Hopefully as time goes by more people will realize this and more educated people will go into police, so that issues such as tasering someone for holding a stapler will become less frequent.