Police Training: A Modern Approach

American Military University

CMRJ499 Criminal Justice Senior Seminar

April 26, 2011

Police Training: A Modern Approach

This research paper will examine the idea that traditional police training methods are inefficient for modern adult learners and new methods and techniques need to be utilized to ensure that today’s police force remains highly trained, professional and effective. The theory behind my thesis statement is that police officers are starting their law enforcement careers later in life (Mineard, 2006), are more diverse, have higher education and more life experiences. In the past, police officers were minimally trained, entered their careers at twenty-one or twenty-two years of age and had limited or no life experience prior to becoming police officers. Many law enforcement officers of the past entered police work directly from military service or school. Police training was developed during the early nineteenth century and the methods of training police officers have not change much over the past two decades. With the advent of the more mature, experienced and educated entry-level police officer, comes the need to reassess the training methods and adapt them to more effective methods for adult learners. Gone is the day of telling a rookie officer to sit in the car, keep quiet and do everything the training officer tells them. The military style training of blindly following leaders and trainers is not a reality in the twenty-first century. Officers who are better educated and have more life experience will, naturally, ask more questions, have more of an analytical approach to policing and will need to have the training adapted to their style of learning. New officers will have a different look at society, have different ethical standards and generally will not