Four years. That's how long I have to study and test and intern until I can receive a degree in public relations. That doesn't sound altogether unreasonable. Most professions require applicants to have a degree, and most degrees take four years to complete. However, there is a profession that sometimes requires an education minimum of a high school diploma and only 12 to 14 weeks in a training program: the police force.
“How can this be?” you may ask. Certainly a police officer's margin of error is much slimmer than mine will be in any standard public relations job. If I make a mistake, I will lose clients. If an officer makes a mistake, someone might lose their life. Considering the gravity of the job they carry, it is absurd that any standard college degree requires more training and education.
The unrest surrounding the police force right now is undeniable. Every week, it seems a new video surfaces of police brutality or a fatal mistake. Just this past month, a dash-cam video was released to the public in which two officers shoot and kill a six-year-old boy while attempting to shoot his father. The public cries for justice and punishment, and rightly so. The nation mourns the loss of such an innocent life because of the carelessness of two men sworn to protect our country’s citizens. Mourning and justice has had its time, but now our country must focus on how to keep this from happening again, on how to stop this epidemic of police violence.
One obvious answer is to increase the currently extremely short time of police training required. While applicants must pass entrance exams and background checks to be accepted into a police academy, once there they complete only 12 to 14 weeks of training. Completing all portions of driver's education requirements in the United States takes longer than this 12 to 14 week window of training that new officers go through. We must demand that men and women who are given the right to carry and use lethal weapons train at least as long as our teenagers learning to drive. It should take our country at least the same amount of time to trust someone with a gun and badge as it does to trust a teen with a car and license, if not longer.
Another issue that is contributing to police violence is the large number of military veterans who are now part of the police force. There are no specific numbers on the prevalence of ex-military in policing as they are grouped in with school crossing guards, wardens and other guards in security related positions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nonetheless, it is commonly accepted that a large number of military vets join the force after their service is complete because of the similarities between the two careers. Both require similar skill sets and experience.
However, there are important differences. In some cases, soldiers are taught to resolve encounters with the opposition by killing the enemy. Additionally, the military settings these vets are coming from are much more violent than the civilian ones they are entering. While a gun may be the primary way to solve a conflict on a battlefield overseas, it is usually not the correct way to solve disputes at home. Being immersed in such violent life or death situations while in their military service can make it hard for vets to switch their reactions when operating in a civilian setting. I am not saying the police force should turn away applicants with any military background. We should require extensive retraining, however, so that less violent solutions to intense encounters become ingrained in their reactions. Furthermore, they should also undergo more thorough psychological testing and be retested on a continuing basis. These men and women deserve the utmost respect for their service and should be free to continue to serve our country as police officers — if they are properly retrained and pass all psychological tests.
Violence seems to be on the increase in America. Most of it comes from criminals. As we see in the daily news, though, too much of it appears to be coming from our own police forces. It is within our country's control to increase police training time and psychological testing and these are things that must be done. Soon. Before any more of our nation's six-year-olds are harmed.