In a conversation with a friend over how dumb and idiotic the cops were being with their ignorance of civil rights and racial profiling, my friend asked me how someone like that becomes a cop.
And that's when it hit me: can it all come down to the level of education that a cop gets before being hired into law enforcement?
Perhaps. I decided to do some checking because I'd read earlier on Dailykos that it was okay to hire cops with low IQs. Studies have shown that people with low IQs tend to be more racist, aggressive, and conservative.
So we're recruiting people with low IQs, and with a high school education and a GED into the police force in our communities. And we're surprised when these cops start harassing minorities because of their preconceived racist notions of minorities in the communities that they patrol.
What are the requirements for one to become a cop? Here's what I found below:
You must also be at least 18 years of age, have a driving license, and be a legal resident of the United States in order to become a police officer. In most departments the legal age of being a police officer is 18 and 21.
So we're getting applicants out of high school and barely college-age to become a cop. We can surely expect great decision-making out of new police officers at that age.
Having a college degree is not a requirement for getting hired by most police departments, but it can help to have even a few years of education in a related field, especially if you plan to later become a detective or hold an administrative position.
So how many cops have a high school education, GED, or never completed college? I looked for information on this, and only found this article which mentioned a study from 1988 showing that 23% of cops had attended college.
And moreover, the article also shows that the more educated a cop is from a 2010 study, the less force he or she is likely to use on a suspect.
But it found that in encounters with crime suspects, officers with some college education or a four-year degree resorted to using force 56 percent of the time, while officers with no college education used force 68 percent of the time.
There's also more from the article:
There are more than 18,000 police agencies in the United States, and more than half of them are in rural areas with fewer than 10 officers, Terrill said. Rural police agencies rarely have a college requirement, but even in mid-to-large U.S. cities, departments with college requirements “still wouldn’t approach 30 or 40 percent,” he said, adding what holds them back is the lack of tangible evidence that higher education makes for better policing.
I think that with the recent police confrontations, that we should take another look at the requirements for one to be a police officer. I'd put a college degree in law enforcement as a major requirement to become a police officer, and also review the Police Training Academy that they go through.
Going through the Police Training Academy is a requirement to become a police officer. And what does that exactly entail? It means that a training academy can be run for police officers of one state, and be headed by a guy that sounds like a complete madman here:
As the New Mexico State Police and the Albuquerque Police Department have come under scrutiny in recent months for a rash of officer-involved shootings, the man who sets the tone for training police recruits in the state has instituted a curriculum that puts less restraint on officers in deciding when to use deadly force.
“Evil has come to the state of New Mexico, evil has come to the Southwest, evil has come to the United States,” said Jack Jones, director of the Law Enforcement Academy, when asked about the new approach.
Er....ah....[jaw drops].
So "evil" is the rationale for this guy who's in charge of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy to put less restraint on officers when it comes to using force on a suspect. Even though the state police department and the Albuquerque Police Department have their own training programs for officers, the basic courses are designed and given out by this whacko.
So how many Police Training Academies around the country are using or giving out courses like Jack Jones at the Law Enforcement Academy? I don't know. I think it's one that we need to look into as citizen activists in demanding better police officers from our city council, and legislators.
We clearly need better cops, and we can start with the level of education a candidate is required to have, and the kind of training we receive. We'll see a huge drop in the use of force used against suspects. It still won't get rid of racism or minority profiling, but we might see a difference from what we're seeing and experiencing right now.