Police Training for Democracy1

I wish to thank Mike Gaffney for his careful reading and helpful suggestions on this paper.

Abstract

In this paper the position is taken that the best way to prepare officers for policing based on democratic values is through an andragogy approach to training (mutual involvement of the expert and the novice in the learning process) rather than through the traditional pedagogy approach (the transmission of information from the expert to the learner). Furthermore, the education and training of police officers must be grounded in experimental learning, oriented toward problem‐solving, and it must emphasize critical thinking and the values and goals of a democratic society. The training and education of officers must continue throughout their careers and personnel from all levels within the organization should continue to obtain the education and training needed to be effective in completing the tasks associated with the positions they hold.

Keywords:

• Democratic Policing Values
• Community‐Oriented Policing
• Discretion
• Situational Exigencies
• Police
• Training
• Police Culture
• Contextuated Training

Notes

Correspondence to: Otwin Marenin, Department of Political Science, Program in Criminal Justice, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164‐4880, USA. Email: [email protected]

I wish to thank Mike Gaffney for his careful reading and helpful suggestions on this paper.

Emergent international policing regimes, in their substantive and procedural content, mirror conventional conceptions of democracy (Das, 2000; Goldstein, 1977; Jones, Newburn, & Smith, 1996; Marenin, 1998; McLaughlin, 1992; Sheptycki, 1996, 2000; N. Walker, 1993). Existing international policing regime norms are found in a variety of UN resolutions, conventions, declarations, codes, and understandings (Clark, 1994). These norms have been published to guide civilian police elements involved in peacekeeping operations (Holm & Eide, 2000; McHugh, 1994; Oakley et al. 1998; UN, 1994, 1996; UN, IPTF, 1996); or to train police in countries in transition (Bayley, 1995, 2001; Coxey, 1998; Marotta, 1999; UN, 1997); or to restructure repressive forces (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 1996; O'Rawe & Moore, 1997; WOLA, 1999–2000).

I focus on street decisions since those are the actions most immediately salient and meaningful to the largest public. The treatment experienced by people at the hands of the police in encounter situations is one of the surest indicators of democratic or undemocratic values at work.

In authoritarian countries street‐level police were typically taught not to make any judgmental decisions when guidelines for action were imprecise or unclear, but to take the matter to higher administrative/supervisory levels. The typical outcomes were avoidance by officers of situations requiring decisions, mis‐application of rules, arbitrary actions, and organizational overload.

I initially hoped to start the paper with a summary of existing training practices in the world's police forces. It became quickly apparent that this would be a hopeless and impossible task. The varieties of training encountered in even a cursory survey of some police forces is so great that they defy categorizations. There are no standardized or common practices, but only similarities in goals sought through training. The lengths of training; the distribution, sequencing, and diversity of content of formal courses; the degree of specialization built into initial training (in some countries initial training depends on the job the officer will start in, e.g., patrol work vs. investigations); the qualifications, expertise, and experience of trainers and teachers; the mix and structuring of basic, advanced, in‐service, and career enhancing training; the resources committed; the basic philosophies which guide training (e.g., pedagogy vs. andragogy); training adapted to different entry levels into the police service (e.g., rank and file vs. advanced entry based on prior formal education); or the sequencing of class based vs. practical, experiential learning—all these vary so much that generalizations would lose their comparative significance (Haberfeld, 2002; Pagon, Virjent, Djuri, & Lobnikar, 1996).

I will focus on training appropriate for street‐level policing. Training for managers or command positions, or specialized police tasks or units (e.g., paramilitary units) is beyond the scope of this paper.

• One issue which has been widely discussed in the USA, and for a long period of time, is whether police recruits should have a college education before they join the organization. So far, the advocates of requiring college education have made little headway. Only about 3% of American police departments have that requirement.

• One reason why little headway has occurred is little empirical support for the argument that educated officers will do better police work on the streets. Studies simply find little consistency and large differences in the performance of college educated vs. high school educated officers, once they have undergone academy training and field training. This is largely an American debate for the common practice found in other countries of four year police colleges which provide a general education and train recruits policing skills as part of the same process is not found in the USA. There is also very little support, as well, in the USA for bifurcated entry points based on a difference in levels of formal education or immediate training in specialized skills. The basic principle is that every new officer starts at the bottom, as a general patrol officer. Nor is there much support for lateral transfers among police agencies.

The move to community policing ‘has expanded police thinking about (or, sometimes, served to remind police and scholars about) the values of accountability, responsiveness, economy in the use of force and authority, freedom from corruption and abuse, adaptability, and the acceptability of police behavior to communities’ (Kennedy & Moore, 2001, p. 522). As changing ideologies reaffirm and reinvigorate old values, changes in training need to follow.

Similarly, Adcox (2000, p. 22) argues, in discussing effective ways to instill ethical police behavior in conditions of conflicting role expectations, that ‘police administrators must realize that the work‐related values of their officers are derived primarily from the organization's culture’ rather than formal rules.

Many police reform efforts in the USA have floundered on not taking into account either the complexities of organizational behaviors or the interplay of formal and informal rules. For example, efforts to institutionalize community oriented policing (which if properly done would be a profoundly democratic form of policing—e.g., Alpert & Moore, 1993) have run into organizational and cultural roadblocks reflecting domain assumptions about the nature and proper organization and practice of policing held by the police themselves, which have stymied implementation and diverted reforms into well‐trod channels (Cordner, 1995; Greene & Pelfrey, 1997; Mastrofski, Worden, & Snipes, 1995; Zhao, 1996).

The rules for work notion echoes Ericson's (1982, p. 25) concept and description of ‘recipe rules,’ the body of practical and proven knowledge developed by cops which allows them to do their job safely and effectively.

It is simply insufficient (though it may be a necessary condition) to incorporate legal norms and human rights values into training workshops or academy curricula. Knowing, formally, what should be done will not make salient or legitimate democratic values and behavior for cops on the beat.

It looked like a good word when I made it up.

For example, training in the USA does not teach democratic policing per se. There are no courses (such as the USA offers when training the police of other countries, e.g., John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 1996) which discuss the nature of democratic policing in general or provide a normative justification for policing by linking the capacity for force and discretion to discussions of human rights, dignity, or democratic values. It is assumed that teaching effective policing, when supported by a strong, rule‐governed police organization, will result in democratic policing, largely by shaping and enforcing a democratic police culture.

There are two main reasons for this. For one, politicians who write enabling laws, publics which vote them into office, and police trainers and recruits know that the USA is a democracy, hence there is little perceived need to discuss the topic within an overview framework. Secondly, teaching democracy appears to the police to be ‘political.’ It has been one of the main goals, and proudest achievements, of the professional ideology in American policing that the police are apolitical in their work. In their rhetoric, professional codes and efforts to promote themselves as a profession, the police present themselves as neutral in political life (irrespective of what they might think as individuals or organization) and responsive only to law and safety needs. (Of course, in reality they are political and they participate in politics, but they do not wish to be drawn into direct political conflicts, for that undermines their carefully nurtured external image and mission.)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Otwin Marenin

Correspondence to: Otwin Marenin, Department of Political Science, Program in Criminal Justice, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164‐4880, USA. Email: [email protected]