> Regular police officers with a high school diploma

That's an odd take. What would a college degree bring to the table for a regular beat cop/patrolman?

> showing up at your door with military surplus equipment wanting to play hero

What education level do you think a typical military service member has to wield the same equipment?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232726/education-levels-...

Also, US Army Infantry training is only 22 weeks long.

Mississippi requires only 10 weeks. Many states are around 20.

Soldiers aren’t armed in the normal course of a day on base.

Massive difference.

Fact is American police are under-trained and over-armed.

> What would a college degree bring to the table for a regular beat cop/patrolman?

Because Reasons, it's become expected that anyone capable of getting a college degree will get one. Which in turn means that not having one gets used as a signal of not being able to get one.

The push to stop listing a degree in job postings that don't actually use one is partly intended to correct this.

> That's an odd take. What would a college degree bring to the table for a regular beat cop/patrolman?

Cops are expected to be able to descalate situations, identify suspicious situations, in theory behave in accordancd with the rule of law and limitations on police force, and much more. These all seem like things that could be in a degree program.

And why would a degree program be better than on the job training?

I’m not saying the theory is not important - I just don’t see how years of theoretical study is warranted

Okay, now replace “police” with “doctor” or “lawyer”. In a job that is mostly theory, having theoretical study is important. Because otherwise lives are ruined. It also helps to filter deadbeats who just want to abuse the system, which is unfortunately a non-zero percentage of police.

I’m not saying we need 10+ years of study, but at least a bachelors focused on civics and humane treatment + a psych evaluation would do wonders to clearing out abusers.

That’s because those jobs are highly theoretical.

Being a street cop is not.

I think fundamentally i don't agree with that.

Being a painter/woodworker/upholsterer is way less theoretical than being a street cop.

But if you hire an untrained one, or one that only learned on the job, you'll have a way, way worse end result than if you hire a formed one (or it will take trice the time and double the materials, if I listen to my father's stories). Two years is enough for low-level workers, i'd guess 3 to 4 should do the work for the police (considering it's 6 to 8 years and a masterwork for compagnons, pro woodworkers/upholsterers would still be better trained than police).

Perhaps not a degree, but definitely enough study to make it harder to get in.

Cops in pretty much any developed country go through one to four years of training. Most give trainees extra points for related studies, like law or criminology. South Korea, for example, has a police university.

Then you have places like the US, where training plus probation time is, on average, less than a year.

I’m not saying that it would make US police necessarily better, but it is clear that they need better, harder, and more comprehensive training, given the current state of affairs.

I agree.

My main gripe is that over the last 40 years we have worked hard to force people to get college degrees even for work were on the job training produce more competent individuals.

No. You just have bad degrees.

I don't know about others professions a lot since I only met a US woodworkers/carpenter, but I'm pretty sure others would be a bit ashamed comparing an out-of school French/Swiss compagnon to any woodworker with less than 30 years of experience. The one I met was ashamed that an formed upholsterer was more precise and knew more about angles than him, despite him being 24 years older (and at that time, my father wasn't working in construction at all).

In fact, considering the number of 'X-doing American react to X in Europe' video, you might find one showing exactly how your carpenters aren't that good (or at least, those working in WV/Ohio, the US is a big country).

I’m not American. I’m Swedish(who live in Switzerland).

Is a degree necessary? Maybe not. But if you’re going to require 2-4 years of formal training, it may as well result in a degree.

Fact is policing in the 21st century is 1/3 social worker, 1/3 law enforcement, and 1/3 procedural red-tape (give or take). It takes a lot of training to do all three effectively. And we, as a nation, don’t require a whole heck of a lot of training.

In Greece it is 3 years of studies to become a patrol police officer. To be a ranking officer it is 4 years and counts as a bachelor. There is also a 2 year special force which supposedly catches up to the same standard, that's a different discussion.

And all that to get on the street without a gun. To get a gun you need another half to one year of on the street training.

But the problem is the gun ho culture. Here are some on the news examples.

a) there is an armed robbery with an ak-47: US go in and start a gun fight, EU/Greece: tell everyone to let the robbers go and note the license plate, catching them a few hours later with no shots fired;

b) person wants to commit suicide by cop, everyone else has left the building: U.S. cops rush in blind, get shot and kill the guy; Greece: there is nothing really equivalent, cops just try to get a psychologist and stay away;

And if the cops shoot someone the public disagrees with, expect weeks of lynching and rioting.

c) mental I'll person with a gun: U.S.: full escalation and long gunfight; Greece: in front of the parliament: chat de-escalation no shot fired by anyone.

Comments are yours.

P.S. (And gun ownership has nothing to do with it. Where I am from there is practically WWII weaponry -- minus the tanks -- everywhere. People learn to shoot really young and keep it up.)

Your impression of policing in the USA is a caricature of reality. B) and C) are particularly offensive to make as unsupported claims. Policing in the USA is handled at a state level, and the policing product varies widely between localities.

Bad policing in the USA gets attention from around the world. Good policing in the USA gets none. Your comments betray a deep ignorance of policing challenges in the USA.

As a word of advice, commenting on domestic political issues of foreign nations often causes one to appear quite foolish, due to a lack of understanding the constituent factors.

US resident here. Policing in the US does vary by municipality, which is part of the problem.

Regardless, policing in the US is broken. I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation and our police still kill people with disturbing frequency.

For one it would prove that they have at least -some- self control and self discipline. Also the military basically keeps 19 year olds in tight reign with an clean line of command and a lot of training to do what you're told with relatively very rare combat situtations and when they get in those situations they are surrounded by others doing exactly the same thing, rather than alone (or at most a partner) in a community that hates cops.

> Regular police officers with a high school diploma and a few weeks worth of training

Meanwhile, the UK is moving to a model that requires the equivalent of a three-year undergraduate in policing[0]. Also the po-po there generally don't have guns.

0: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sec...

For 'Basic Bobby' it reads more like a three year trade apprenticeship:

    You can choose to undertake a three-year Level 6 degree apprenticeship, which involves both on and off-the-job training. As with other apprenticeships, you'll earn while you learn and upon successful completion of the programme, you'll have finished your probation as a police constable and will have achieved the BSc Professional Policing Practice.

Undergrad degrees don't have on the job training + probationary.

Looks appopriate though.

Basic Constable here is two years - six month coursework, 18 month probie.

https://www.jobsandskills.wa.gov.au/jobs-and-careers/occupat...

I’m not disagreeing, but note that what you’ve quoted does in fact confer an accredited undergrad degree

Sure .. but typically for centuries in commonwealth countries undergrad university degrees don't include paid on the job training.

Sure, medical degrees include time in hospitals after the basics are completed, etc .. all that aside this really does read like a (good) trade apprenticeship program - time split between course work and supervised practice, which I agree with.

But a Bachelor of Science equivilent undergrad degree?

Apparently technically yes .. but that does seem a stretch.

UK cops are somehow completely useless but super authoritarian at the same time tho