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Michelson, Heidingsfield, Garrett:
The missing link to police professionalism
It has often been said that if police expect to gain the same professional status as doctors, lawyers and teachers, a college degree is a necessary prerequisite. Less often said is that it is equally important for the degree program of choice to impart a common body of knowledge to the police profession. While other professions have established the parameters and dictated the core content of their academic courses of study, police leaders and practitioners have had a minimal role in defining their professional educational core. Today’s increasing awareness of the relationship between higher education and police performance, coupled with the advances made in police recruit training and the opportunities afforded by distance-learning technologies, offer a powerful recipe to rectify this professional shortcoming.
Historically, it can be argued that the police community has essentially failed to advocate the importance of higher education and has been unable to agree on or articulate a common body of knowledge for the profession. While blue-ribbon advisory panels have spoken on behalf of higher education for police officers as early as the 1930s, with one exception the evolving demand for college education has never enjoyed universal support. That exception was the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP) which emerged from the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1967...
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