Higher education and law enforcement career paths: Is the road to success paved by degree?

Polk, O. Elmer; Armstrong, David A.

doi:10.1080/10511250100085061

Cited by 32 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Finally, a binary variable indicates whether officers responded that they were satisfied with their job. These individual-level characteristics are important as some have argued that any impact of education will disappear when rank, experience, and job satisfaction are controlled for (see Bayley and Bittner 1997;NRC 2004;Paoline and Terrill 2007;Polk and Armstrong 2001;Trojanowicz and Nicholson 1976).…”

Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Higher Education on Police Officer Attitudes toward Abuse of Authority

Telep¹

2011

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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This study examines whether the acquisition of a four-year college degree impacts police officer attitudes toward abuse of authority. This research also explores whether level of higher education and the timing of degree completion alter this potential attitudinal impact of a bachelor's degree. Using data from a nationally representative survey sample, the study finds that officers with a pre-service bachelor's degree hold attitudes that are less supportive of abuse of authority, although the effect is fairly small in magnitude. These effects remain regardless of when officers receive their degree and across varying levels of higher education (i.e., associate's degree, attending some college). These findings suggest that higher education has a beneficial impact related to police officer abuse of authority attitudes.

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Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Higher Education on Police Officer Attitudes toward Abuse of Authority

Telep¹

2011

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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“…Consider also the more scholarly debate around the relationship between higher education and policing (Roberg andBonn 2004, Patterson 2011). Although most of this scholarship emanates from the more established North American (Polk andArmstrong 2001, Rydberg andTerrill 2010) or Australian (Mahony andPrenzler 2006, Wimshurst andRansley 2007) experience, there is a growing debate in Britain around the benefits of university education for policing (Police Review 2009, Neyroud 2011. Although this debate is beyond the scope of the current article, it is largely implicitly predicated on the standard paradigm of learning.…”

Section: Learning As Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community engagement and learning as ‘becoming’: findings from a study of British police recruit training

Heslop

2011

Policing and Society

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This article draws on empirical data from research into a British police recruit training programme to put forward a theory of how police recruits learn. Official accounts of learning in British police training are premised on the assumption that learning is an individualised process based on 'common sense' notions of acquisition and transfer. However, these accounts fail to acknowledge both the socially situated aspect to police learning, as well as the relationship between learning and identity. Drawing on recent theorising from the field of education, as well as the authors own study of police officers undertaking community placements, it is argued that learning is a process of 'becoming'.

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“…After several decades of "searching for certainty"-that is, looking for empirical confirmation that higher education definitely produces better police on the job-there have been calls in the policy and research literature to shift attention to other related questions, such as the relationship between higher education and career progression (Polk and Armstrong 2001).…”

Section: The Roles Of Higher Education For Policementioning

confidence: 99%

Police Education and the University Sector: Contrasting Models from the Australian Experience

Wimshurst¹,

Ransley²

2007

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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University education for police officers continues to be heralded as a major component in the reform of police organizations and police culture. Interestingly, the extensive research literature from the United States over the past 30 years remains ambivalent about the extent to which education achieves these objectives. Individual officers doubtless gain personal and professional benefits, but the relationship between higher education and police effectiveness, professionalism and accountability remains unclear. Nevertheless, the Australian experience since the late 1980s is that concerted efforts to provide university programs for police almost invariably arise from periods of crisis in police organizations and the recommendations of official inquiries into those organizations. Two educational "reform" models have resulted, one based on liberal education and the other on a paradigm labeled "professional policing." These now constitute the main (contrasting) paradigms for police education and training across different states. The case study concludes that the relationship between university education and preparation for policing is likely to remain problematic. This paper explores two themes. The first is that in Australia efforts to introduce major changes to police education and training arise from crises of public confidence in police organizations. Commissions of inquiry into police mismanagement and corruption have invariably then recommended closer "partnerships" between the police services and university providers in the hope of achieving wider police organizational reform. We illustrate this tendency with a case study from Queensland, Australia, in the late 1980s. The second and related theme explores the emergence, subsequent to these commissions of inquiry, of two paradigms of police/university relations which we call the "liberal education" and "professional policing" models.While there are circumstances particular to Queensland which partly explain the variability in the police/university relationships over time, later events in

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Higher education and law enforcement career paths: Is the road to success paved by degree?

Cited by 32 publications

References 8 publications

The Impact of Higher Education on Police Officer Attitudes toward Abuse of Authority

The Impact of Higher Education on Police Officer Attitudes toward Abuse of Authority

Community engagement and learning as ‘becoming’: findings from a study of British police recruit training

Police Education and the University Sector: Contrasting Models from the Australian Experience

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