Because there are some 17,000 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies involved, formal police training in the United States can only be described in generalities. In the following article, Dr. Otwin Marinen, professor of political science in the criminal justice program at Washington State University, discusses the types of training available to police in the U.S., emphasizing that "only practical training...translates democratic norms into effective policy."




The job of policing is one of the most complex and difficult tasks in any society. In democracies, the authority and disposition of the police are founded on law, yet they retain significant discretion in when and how to apply the law. Police must be responsive to public demands for service and protection, yet must resist if such demands were to violate the constitutionally protected rights of individuals and groups. They are granted a degree of professional autonomy as individuals and organizations, yet must remain accountable to societal norms and democratically selected representatives.

Many police activities -- the use of force to control social relations; lying and deception to carry out undercover work or engage in controlled drug buys -- violate conventional societal norms yet are necessary to satisfy public demands for order, safety and well-being. In short, the police must balance legitimate yet conflicting values and rights; demands for effectiveness with protection of individual rights; the maintenance of public order without unduly restricting liberty; the need to threaten or use force without deviating into abuse; and guidance by law and professional expertise simultaneously. Training seeks to give them the intellectual and practical tools to make proper balancing decisions.

FORMAL TRAINING

The focus in this article is on local police in the United States. They are the most numerous, having general jurisdiction and power, and they are the police most often encountered by citizens. In 1993 alone, state and local agencies employed about 830,000 people, of which about 620,000 were sworn officers and the remainder civilians.

Most local police are generalists; they do everything that is required. Much of their work consists of patrolling, routine order enforcement and the provision of services. Extensive specialization in investigative, technical and administrative skills is found most often in larger departments.

Formal training for police at the local level takes three general forms: basic academy training, field training by experienced officers and in-service training in specialized topics. The training described here is that for "sworn" officers, those who have full law-enforcement powers, rather than for civilians who work for and in police agencies. Of course, officers learn informally as they do their work. Formal training seeks to provide the framework of rules and guidelines in which experience and advice are interpreted and learned.

STANDARDIZING POLICE TRAINING

Standardized academy training is a fairly recent development in U.S. police history and was promoted by two policy innovations, one at the state and the other at the federal level.

In 1959, California established the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) to standardize training requirements for police agencies within the state. Since then, POST-type agencies and training have been adopted by all states. In the United States, since municipalities are legal creations of state governments, states control the form and substance of municipal authority, including policing, through incorporation charters.

POST agencies typically establish standards for police recruitment, retention and dismissal; set minimal standards for training; and function as a mechanism for the accreditation of new police agencies, training programs and other innovations.

The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals examined the criminal justice system in the early 1970s and found inconsistent and widely varying police-training requirements and patterns across the country. It recommended that police recruits be given a minimum of 400 hours of basic training, divided into the following categories:

• introduction to the criminal justice system (8%)
  
• law (10%)
  
• human values and problems (22%)
  
• patrol and investigative procedures (33%)
  
• use of force and police proficiency (18%) and
  
• administration (9%).

The commission also recommended that educational entry standards for recruits be raised. Today, most local police agencies require only a high school education; about one percent require a college degree of potential recruits. Currently, all states have standardized academy curricula which average about 425 hours, with larger departments typically requiring longer training periods.

BASIC ACADEMY TRAINING

Training is the responsibility of local police departments who must pay for sending a recruit to an academy. Basic academy courses are offered by state governments, by regional groupings of agencies and by some larger agencies themselves. In Minnesota, for instance, training is offered by community colleges and graduates of the program are hired directly by police departments.

Basic training generally stresses three areas of competence: patrol and investigations skills, substantive and procedural legal knowledge, and the proper use of force and weaponry. Much less emphasis is placed on human relations and communications skills, knowledge of the criminal justice system or professional ethics. Training seeks to give recruits the basic practical skills they will most likely need as they go out to do their job. The components of basic training change over time, including most recently the rise of community-oriented policing. Another development -- the hiring of minorities and women as police officers, and an accompanying awareness and acceptance of cultural differences -- has stimulated the development and teaching of multi-cultural training at police academies. Dealing with each other and with citizens of different races, ethnicity, gender or lifestyle is most commonly taught through role-playing.

Academy training is normally conducted by experienced police officers, in a classroom setting, and tested by written examinations or in practical applications, for example, measuring automobile accident tire marks. Training provides the formal knowledge thought essential for all officers and asks such questions as what is the definition of burglary or how do you handle a drug arrest? But training also is interpreted through the lens of experience, common sense and a shared imagery embedded in police culture.

The most common themes running through all teaching are pride in the police profession, officer safety, the obligation of all police to protect one another, the need to establish control in any situation, and continual awareness of one's surroundings. Typically, the final lesson -- one recruits take an oath to uphold at graduation -- is the Police Code of Conduct.

FIELD TRAINING

Field training continues the transition of the new recruit from a civilian environment into a new police setting and culture. It covers the general nature of policing skills and issues and situations faced, teaches what to do in specific situations and introduces new officers to specific aspects of the department and its environs, that is, the racial composition of a city and neighborhood characteristics. Recruits normally are on probation -- they can be fired without cause -- during field training.

Field training has always existed informally by pairing new recruits with experienced officers. The San Jose, California, Police Department, in 1972, developed a formal field-training program lasting one year (including a 14-week basic academy course), which was staffed by field-training officers (FTOs).

After completing the academy, new officers were gradually introduced to the nature of police work, under strict supervision, and continually evaluated by at least two FTOs on their knowledge of core (e.g., pursuit driving, danger recognition, use of a gun) and peripheral skills (e.g., people skills, report writing, basic demeanor).

Since that time, most police departments have adopted a form of the FTO system. In 1993, field training in the United States averaged about 220 hours, with departments in mid-size cities (between a quarter to half-a-million inhabitants) requiring the greatest number of hours (about 550).

IN-SERVICE TRAINING

In-service training is offered to selected working police officers often as a reward for good work, preparation for career advancement, or an enticement to have rank-and-file police develop specific skills needed by a department.

Longer in-service training courses, mostly in administration and management, are offered by state and federal agencies, and private organizations. They can take the form of short courses in current issues, new technologies, recent court decisions on substantive or procedural law (e.g., search and seizure), investigative techniques or management skills. Courses normally last from one day to two weeks and are offered continuously by state training commissions and academies or private organizations. For example, the Washington State Training Commission publishes an annual Training Catalogue which lists courses that range from policy and procedure writing to child physical and sexual abuse investigation to community-oriented policing to traffic accident investigation reconstruction.

Many states have Police Command Colleges which offer courses for aspiring police administrators and chiefs. For example, the National Academy Course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, is tailored to local police issues. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) at Glynco, Georgia, trains personnel primarily from federal agencies, but also teaches local officers in skills and knowledge not normally taught at local courses or academies. Well-known non-police organizations include the Southern Police Institute and the Northwestern Traffic Safety Institute, both affiliated with universities.

DEMOCRATIC POLICING

It is one of the great paradoxes that police training in the United States does not address the question of democracy directly. There are no courses which discuss the nature of democratic policing in general or provide a justification for policing by linking the capacity for force and discretion to discussions of human rights, dignity or democratic values. It is assumed that teaching effective policing, when supported by a strong, rule-governed police organization, will result in democratic policing, largely by shaping and enforcing a democratic police culture.

There are two main reasons for this anomaly. For one, politicians who write enabling laws, publics which vote them into office, and police trainers and recruits already know that the United States is a democracy, hence there is little need to discuss the topic within an overview framework. Second, teaching democracy appears to American police forces to be "political." It has been one of the main goals and proudest achievements of the professional ideology in American policing that the police are apolitical in their work. In their rhetoric, professional codes and efforts to promote themselves as a profession, the police present themselves as neutral in political life (irrespective of what they might think as individuals or an organization) and responsive only to law and safety needs. Of course, in reality they are political and they participate in politics, but they do not wish to be drawn into direct political conflicts, for that undermines their carefully nurtured external image and mission.

Though democratic policing is not taught as such, four particular aspects of training teach these skills: exposure to a professional code of ethics; knowledge of the law; technical skills; and, more recently, the ideology of community-oriented policing.

CODE OF ETHICS

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (which is largely an American organization) adopted a Law Enforcement Code of Ethics in 1957, superseded by the Police Code of Conduct in 1989. The new code is more specific, stressing the values of impartial performance, reasonableness when exercising discretionary powers, the limited use of force, confidentiality of police-generated knowledge, integrity in the face of corruption and abuse of power, cooperation with other criminal justice agencies, personal responsibility for conduct and regard for the profession in one's private life. The oath of office which recruits swear to uphold incorporates these values.

The code also functions as a background statement of standards. Police officers know it exists and they know that its norms, which justify their discretionary powers also serve to discipline that power when it is misused.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW

A major component of academy and in-service training is knowledge of the law, which comprises, in addition to the details of local codes and constitutional procedures, the notion that in police work law matters. The police know that they will be held accountable if they act outside the law. The police complain continuously about the law but they also respect it, for without law they would be normal citizens and the legitimacy of their power and authority non-existent. Their right to use force to control behavior would not be accepted if the public saw them as acting outside the law. But when properly done, their work is the rule of law in action.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

This aspect of training supports democratic policing because being proficient in investigation, interrogation and control obviates the need to use force, threats or undue pressure to get at the truth, to provide expected services or to handle people in distress. When the police know how to properly detect and investigate a crime they have little need to pressure or beat a confession out of suspects. When the police are good in dealing with people they can defuse potentially violent situations without injuries to themselves or other participants. Technical expertise is thus a substitute for arbitrary, coercive and illegal actions.

COMMUNITY-ORIENTED POLICING

Community-oriented policing has emerged as the latest innovation in American policing. Many of its fundamental goals -- prevention, problem-solving, partnership with the community, the expansion of the police role to emphasize service -- are democratic in the most important sense. Here the police are living up to their promised roles as caretakers of the community.

TRAINING FOR DEMOCRACY

Training the police for democracy can stress general and abstract notions of democratic policing or it can focus on practical matters and manners of police work. The argument made here is that the only training which will teach democratic policing is that which discusses democratic values within the contexts of policing practice. Only practical training, what to do when and how, translates democratic norms into effective policy. In any case, the police will translate what they are taught at the academy or on the job into decision-making rules on the street.

Yet training for democratic policing faces a basic tension. Formal training does not occur in isolation. Recruits come to policing already formed as adults, their basic personality patterns set and established, and after they leave the academy they must work with fellow officers who have developed through their own working experiences particular views of themselves, their occupation and society.

Training is but a small experience in a police officer's life and work, and is always confronted by the power of informal socialization to police work, that is, the existing police culture into which recruits move. The apocryphal story always told is that the first phrase new police officers hear when finally they start the first day on the job is this: "now forget all you have been told. This is the real story."

In the end, the police proclaim and the community demands that they serve the public and not themselves or the state. That is a simple yet accurate definition of democratic policing.

Issues of Democracy
USIA Electronic Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, November 1997