Commentary
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X6403700301 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
Universities and the Police Service
The marked failure of the Service to recruit anything like a
reasonable proportion of university graduates gives cause for grave
anxiety. At a time when the number of university places is rising
steeply, and when whatever Government is in power will continue to
foster the trend, the police career simply is not attracting its fair
share of university-trained men. To emphasize this defect in the
composition of the Service is not in any way derogatory to the vast
majority
of
serving officers: we should be infinitely the poorer
without the variety
of
experience which has come in from the armed
forces, the merchant navy, industry, commerce and other services
and also without the good-quality young men who come in from
cadet training. The point is that increasingly large numbers
of
young
people are 'getting university training and hardly any of them are
coming into the Service. Why should this be?
There are many answers. A lot of graduates wear glasses or are
in other ways physically unsuitable. A lot of graduates study with a
particular profession in viewfrom the outset. A lot of graduates are
temperamentally unfitted for police work.
It
is easy to find answers
of this kind, but there are other answers, which cannot be given
without some damage to our own complacency. Industry, for
instance, puts a lot of time and money into ensuring that it gets its
graduates: the example is to be followed. Industry, and it is by no
means alone in this, for the armed services and many others do
likewise, gives the graduate acertain amount
of
special consideration
on account
of
his degree. Industry is well aware that people of
managerial and board quality must not be kept too long in subordin-
ate employment. Has this no application to police work? Con-
servatism in these respects may well be excessive. When goods are
in short supply their price goes up. Competition for the graduate is
keen today and the Service is subject like everyone else to the laws
of supply and demand.
It
is obvious that the Service must take imaginative and positive
steps to interest universities in the police career, certainly by estab-
lishing a firm relationship with appointments boards and probably
by shortening the stages by which men
of
the right calibre can
advance to higher responsibility. But there is another, almost
totally neglected, aspect of the problem which deserves attention.
Police work, with its immense social influence, its complex
and
fascinating history, its gradually evolved principles
of
strategy,
March 1964 101
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