Abstract
Training is of paramount importance in order to enable police today to fulfill their many complex roles and to accomplish the missions of their organizations. Generally, training begins the day you are hired. In some agencies, such as the New Jersey State Police, training is a pre-employment requirement. Regardless of when a police officer/trooper receives his/her training to enter the profession, it is only the start of a training process that must remain intact until the day he/she retires. Consider the following quote taken from a 1995 Law Enforcement Magazine article written by Ed Nowicki. " The prototype police officer for the next millennium will probably require the compassion of Mother Teresa, strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger, shooting skills of Dirty Harry, intelligence of Albert Einstein, wit of Will Rogers and patience of Ghandi. But until perfect officers can be genetically engineered, then cloned, society will be served by men and women who receive special training to meet complex demands of a modern, growing and rapidly changing society."
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Numbered map of police force territories in the Un...
English: SAN DIEGO (May 6, 2010) Master-at-Arms Se...The key point is that there are no perfect police officers, but through special training, police officers can be developed to deal successfully with today's society. A police officer has a duty to serve and police organizations have a duty to train.
DUTY TO TRAIN
Training and development characterize a planned effort by an organization to promote
employees's learning of job related behaviors and skills. Some organizations distinguish between the two by using the term training for teaching low level or technical employees to perform current tasks, whereas development refers to teaching managers and professionals the skills needed for current and future responsibilities. For simplicity, we will refer to both as training.
Years ago, many police departments hired a new police officer but did not really address the issue of training.