Police training academies have recently been beset by a host of problems that have undermined the effectiveness of their training regimens. Many academies have been subjected to a constant stream of turnover in the leadership cadres of their program. This has been exacerbated by a lack of focus in their missions and compounded by the lack of systematic and rigorous evaluation process. The result is that police academies have been slow to react to the changes in policing on the ground, and especially to the proliferation of community-oriented policing (COPS). These various and interrelated problems have contributed to the erosion of the effectiveness of police training programs. The only way to change this reality is to reduce the turnover among the leadership of police academies and to institute a systematic evaluation process whereby the curriculum and techniques of police training programs are compared to the skills and knowledge required to be an effective police officer on the streets. It is vitally important to our nationÆs safety to field motivated, skilled, and educated police officers. Without a comprehensive and well evaluated training system that fosters these values in police recruits, police training programs are really just a stab in the dark.
Before analyzing police training today, it may be valuable to take a brief look at the evolution of policing in the United States over the past hundred years. By looking at the evolving nature of policing, we will be able to identify some of the challenges facing police training programs as they struggle to adapt to the changing needs of police officers.
Some scholars have identified three distinct eras in 20th century policing. In the early 20th century, the political era of policing was marked by police officers who walked their beats on foot and intimately knew the citizens in their neighborhoods. Police officers during this era had limited supervision from...