A recurring issue in the initial training of police recruits in England and Wales concerns the status of student police officers. This position paper engages with debates concerning this aspect of initial police training from a university perspective by reflecting on the experiences gained over a three and a half year period of delivering a Student Officer Programme (SOP), a joint collaboration between a University Department and a UK police service. As such it should be read as a comment piece that aims primarily to stimulate debate. Although not an empirical research piece, the paper nonetheless engages with the experiences that have been borne out of the collaborative running of the SOP. The paper presents a philosophical analysis of one particular aspect of that experience, namely the tension that arises from the contradictory status of student police officers.

This paper argues the current exposition of police knowledge through the discourses of police science and evidenced based policing (EBP) leads to exaggerated claims about what is, and can be, known in policing. This new orthodoxy underestimates the challenges of applying knowledge within culturally-mediated police practice. The paper draws upon virtue epistemology highlighting the role cognitive agency plays in establishing knowledge claims. We challenge the assumption that it is possible to derive what works in all instances of certain aspects of policing and suggest it would be more apt to speak about what worked within a specific police context.

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This article reflects upon the development of the Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) in England and Wales and considers the implications it will have for policing degrees. Given the topic, the article is primarily forward-looking, but it draws upon the experiences of having worked closely with police for over 20 years in designing bespoke policing degree programmes. It is offered as an opinion piece. The PEQF represents a significant step change in the development of police training and education. In particular, it places tertiary education at the centre of all aspects of learning within the police organization. The article welcomes the PEQF as a significant opportunity to develop our understanding of police practice. In particular, it provides an impetus to explore ways of embedding learning and assessment within operational police practice. However, this will require both investment and a substantial change programme to ensure that police services have the appropriate infrastructure to support tertiary levels of learning and assessment. It will also require a cultural shift within both universities and police organizations. Most importantly, if the PEQF is to fulfil its potential, police services will need to embrace, promote, and enable reflective practitioners and become reflective practices in the fullest sense. If this is achieved, I argue, the policing degrees of tomorrow will be radically transformed for the better.

The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) in England and Wales has reignited discussions about police governance. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing on the role liberal values play within liberal democratic ideals of policing. It suggests, policing principles historically have been informed primarily by liberal goals; that is to say these principles are liberal before they are democratic. Policing in England and Wales today, however, is increasingly informed by democratic values at the expense of liberal principles.The spectre of illiberal democracy is considered here as a warning in light of this development. The paper argues that there is a growing disparity between the rhetoric of liberal policing principles, historically rooted in pre-democratic times, and the reality of contemporary policing in societies that are increasingly sensitive to democratic expectations. Police independence is used to illustrate this argument. Police independence is still revered in rhetoric today, but the liberal origin of this concept is not recognised. But the idea that the police should retain a degree of freedom from political interference makes sense from a liberal perspective, one that is increasingly difficult to defend as liberal values decline in importance, and democratic aspirations come to the fore. The paper concludes by suggesting that liberal values are, on the one hand, increasingly difficult to accommodate within contemporary ideas of policing, but are at the same time becoming more necessary, especially following the introduction of PCCs.