Maybe it's because lawyers get to decide the whole fate of a person based on a series of complicated events and loopholes in the law whereas law enforcement requires (most of the time) to catch someone who's been punching people in the street to steal their phones and stuff like that. I know that's a caricature but it's still not untrue.
Law enforcement doesn’t deal with 90% of the law. They deal with just criminal law and the only time they are making decisions is on very specific stuff which their training is focused on.
First you cut out all of the civil law as they don’t deal with the details of that, then you cut out all of the criminal law that doesn’t require police to mess with it other than just arresting the dude when they are told to arrest him like tax evasion. Now cut out any of the law that isn’t something that police see during their normal moving around on patrol but still warrants a police response when reported.
Now you have all of what police need to know about the law which generally is “do what the people that outrank you tell you to do”
The most legally complex thing a cop needs to know about is how traffic tickets work and whether punching someone or pointing a gun at someone is something you can arrest someone for.
Others have made some good points. Police officers only need to know enough about the law to understand when it is being broken- and even then it isn’t strictly required as police are often dispatched to calls and told what they are looking for, as opposed to cruising the streets hoping to see something illegal. Much of law school focuses on theories of law and procedure (EXTREMELY important in court.) Beyond certain basic principals like chain of custody and such that officers need to know in order to not ruin any chance of prosecution or violate civil rights, they really don’t need to know that much about law- even then it’s detectives and such which those things are more important for generally, not your average black and white.
Others have made some good points. Police officers only need to know enough about the law to understand when it is being broken- and even then it isn’t strictly required as police are often dispatched to calls and told what they are looking for, as opposed to cruising the streets hoping to see something illegal. Much of law school focuses on theories of law and procedure (EXTREMELY important in court.) Beyond certain basic principals like chain of custody and such that officers need to know in order to not ruin any chance of prosecution or violate civil rights, they really don’t need to know that much about law- even then it’s detectives and such which those things are more important for generally, not your average black and white.
With that said.... it is still a good point on training times. You need to know shallow but broad generals about law from vehicle codes to all sorts of things. You need to know arrest and control procedures, you should generally know some basics of performance driving if and when you even get assigned to a car. You need to know safe weapons handling and a host of related skills. You should have at least a basic understanding of a wide range of often critical topics- and you really should have training in psychology, conflict mediation, and other “soft skill” training to be able to deal with situations in a calm, even headed manner and not get flustered or make poor decisions in the snap. And those skills and that knowledge ALONE take more than 6 months of dedicated study to develop well.
I think that we really need to reevaluate the way we police. Do you need an undergraduate to write parking tickets in Pomona? No. But that’s the thing. I think we need to make our more “rank and file” officers more like hall monitors. They don’t have the training to walk around with a gun in public all day, and they really shouldn’t have the need for the most part. We should require increasingly advanced training to allow officers promotion and increases in what we trust them with. I mean, we can really go two ways- we can uphold an idea the police officers aren’t just the same as anyone else but with a uniform- that their testimony means more, that their judgment is better, etc etc; or we can just say- you know what? Most officers are just people doing a job- they have about as much or less training at it than is required to move up the prep line stations at a fast food joint, and I wouldn’t trust most fast food workers to carry a gun and have the powers and discretion we give police.
But this in between isn’t working so well for a god number of folks. The place where we are- where the general social leaning is to treat police officers like they are cut from a different cloth- experts who know what they are doing because.... they got less training and are less stringently re certified than Hair Dressers? An 18 year old kid has to keep a spotless credit and criminal record, not cheat on their spouse (and get caught), and even when out of uniform they must not engage in conduct which would embarrass their uniform- all that for sub $20k and a level of responsibility equivalent to: “don’t ask. Do what you’re told.” I mean- that 18yo has to surrender their weapon when it isn’t in use and check it out with authorization- and that’s when they aren’t walking around among the US population/ that’s in the middle of a desert or when surrounded by armed trained people in a restricted area. We don’t even trust soldiers to have the weapons access police have.
So I don’t think it’s a bad idea that we keep the majority of officers more or less held to current standards, as long as we lower the expectations and perceptions and responsibilities we entrust to them. Every organization of scale needs its general
Purpose “worker bees.” But not even a Target store would trust you with a price gun right out of the gate. No warehouse is going to give the uneducated dock guys access to systems that if used wrong could screw up inventory- let alone put them in a forklift or power equipment they could kill someone with. Hell- most warehouses won’t let you use the man powered pallet jack until you’ve crossed a certain threshold.
If we are going to hold police up as more capable- then we need to require that we can actually certify they are more capable. I mean- seriously. In some states the difference between a guy who wouldn’t be allowed to carry a gun even unloaded in public, and a guy who can carry open and hot on duty and concealed off duty... are a few months of night school classes at the annex where they teach tire retreading and “interpretive welding?” Really? The welding guys probably get more training on safety.
(I’m not looking down on welding. I want to make it clear that comparison is based on real life. Welding is potentially dangerous and a difficult and important skill that is itself an art. I was merely pointing out in sincerity that beginning welding classes often are more serious and in depth with safety culture, and many cessions welding jobs are extremely serious about safety and safety processes. I am a terrible welder and anything important or that I want pretty, I’m asking someone better to do for me.)
What’s most chilling to me is the level of training and certification required in general for skills like conflict resolution and other phycology in working with people and dealing with people in non violent ways.
A lot of people have implied on past post that I’m biased against police or that I just don’t like the police. I’m not biased against police, I’m biased FOR the society and justice system police serve. If I have to choose between police and everyone else in the country.... derp. That shouldn’t really be a complicated choice beyond perhaps moral philosophy. But the choice is everyone- since the police exist to serve everyone. That which exists for a purpose must fulfill that purpose, otherwise why do we care if it exists?
And really- when I say we need to reform police and restructure what Policing means in our society- I say that FOR THE POLICE. How unfair is it to them? It’s a hard job. A very hard job at times. They’re human. They have instincts and fears. When an officer gets scared and makes a move in a panic- shoots the person holding a banana or they think is reaching for a gun but isn’t- the officer has to live with that, the officer will likely face career ramifications or even get fired, increasingly they may face jail time and/or be dragged through a public nightmare and media circus.
We are sending officers into situations where we know this can happen. We know that on a blink of an eye, even trying to do their best, their own lives can be ruined (not to mention the lives of others) by one poor decision or one bad situation that often could have been avoided. That’s not fair to our officers. To send our officers out with so little training? To take a kid who doesn’t understand what they’re getting into and thinks whatever it is they can handle it and their training will prepare them- and toss them in, sink or swim? That’s not fair to the officer is it?
Policing as we do it now our tremendous weight on any individual officer. They must have lightening quick thinking and reflexes but make the right call 99.999% of the time. The must be aware of social and political issues and cultural differences and 9,000 other things all while exercising discretion and protecting themselves and others. It’s a lot. The way we do policing now really requires loads of knowledge and experience to prepare you as well as just being- an exceptional human specimen. But we don’t require any of that. We tell guys who aren’t up to those standards that the bar for the job is low- and they come in and most will do an amazing job working far beyond their abilities to try and fill the role, many will mostly get it right- right enough that most of the time they are functionally able.
Those times they aren’t though, the times they are already stretching to fill the big shoes we laid down for them and things stretch a little too far- yeah. Those times things can go badly for the officer.
So let’s not set our officers up to fail? Let’s not throw them into a meat grinder and hope they make it through. Let’s give them training and set a high bar so that they know what they are getting in to and we can make sure that they have all the skills and knowledge to do the job as best any human being could do it. We are judging guys who in some cases, couldn’t be expected to graduate a community college or balance a checkbook even, to the standard of this idea of the “elite police officer” when that isn’t true. There is nothing elite about being a police officer. A clean-ish record and slightly more training than a mall security guard is required to get. That’s the norm. And then when they make a mistake they are crucified.
That’s like giving you kid an hour of driving lessons and then tossing them the keys to the car; and being furious if they crash it. What did you expect to happen? You can’t hold them to the same standard as an F1 driver- and they probably shouldn’t have been driving. They definitely shouldn’t have been driving around other people.
"Most jobs aren't worth the degree they require"
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So let's make sure the career where the end goal is to get more competent, caring people, is one of them!
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· 4 years ago
A six-month training does barely qualify you to be an assistant security guard at the cardboard factory. Never mind becoming a lawyer, in order to profoundly learn any demanding, complex profession one would need a longer training, and it should be enough for someone risking their own and every citizen's life who encounter them in a risky/edgy situation? Fnck outta here, indeed...
It somewhat depends. But in many states, before you can become a guard you need a guard card, this varies but is often 40-60 hours of training to be certified. Many security guard positions are... well.... at most they might involve chucking doors and windows to ensure they were locked and there are no signs of tampering. Perhaps to stand or sit in place and watch a designated area, or to perform a walking patrol or some combination. There are of course more involved security guard jobs where you monitor and ensure compliance with rules etc. but it is common that the position might not require more than a short training period to do the job to the standard the company wants- which often amounts to pretty much nothing. Like being a human sensor for an alarm system or just being there to deter the lowest level of mischief makers who might do things if a place was perceived as completely vacant.
And even then one is balancing the risk of an actual problem occurring and the chances that problem would be detected. So there are many (again, MANY, not most of all) security job posts where one can sleep or play video games or even perhaps “cut out” with the only dangers they’d ever be discovered being a chance visit by a supervisor or an actual incident happening which they would be expected to have not been able to miss if they had been performing their job to the letter or in any basically functional capacity.
So on the low end it is maybe 100 hours of training total. That said- I’m going to agree that most security guards should get more training, and guards in critical positions and functions often will receive much longer training. I worked for a civilian organization with a bit of government overlap which trained its security force extensively and had very high standards for who was allowed to take that job. It would be about 6-12 months before a new security person was able to work solo unsupervised for most posts, and then they would be out at a post where they still worked as part of a team of more experienced security personnel who had more specialized tasks, and set to do their own generalized tasks independently but in coordination with the team.
First you cut out all of the civil law as they don’t deal with the details of that, then you cut out all of the criminal law that doesn’t require police to mess with it other than just arresting the dude when they are told to arrest him like tax evasion. Now cut out any of the law that isn’t something that police see during their normal moving around on patrol but still warrants a police response when reported.
Now you have all of what police need to know about the law which generally is “do what the people that outrank you tell you to do”
The most legally complex thing a cop needs to know about is how traffic tickets work and whether punching someone or pointing a gun at someone is something you can arrest someone for.
Purpose “worker bees.” But not even a Target store would trust you with a price gun right out of the gate. No warehouse is going to give the uneducated dock guys access to systems that if used wrong could screw up inventory- let alone put them in a forklift or power equipment they could kill someone with. Hell- most warehouses won’t let you use the man powered pallet jack until you’ve crossed a certain threshold.
.
So let's make sure the career where the end goal is to get more competent, caring people, is one of them!