Recent Book: Training: Police Training in the United States
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6403700311 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
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RECENT
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BOOKS
I',
TRAINING
ALLEN
Z.
GAMMAGE:
Police Training in the United States. Charles C. Thomas,
Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A.
Dr. Gammage is a police trainer of
long and pioneer experience and his
account of what training is available
in his country for policemen is ex-
tremely interesting and informative.
The great patchwork of American
police forces makes for a corresponding
variety and unevenness in training
facilities; in the United States there
is nothing like the degree of uniformity
in training which has come about in
this country since the second world
war. Indeed, from a 1959 survey it
appeared that in 476 out of 1,105cities
there wasno formal training programme
for recruits, though all cities of over
250,000 inhabitants had a programme
of some sort. New York, of course,
has a well-established and compre-
hensive training system, as have
several othercities and states, and there
is the excellent work
of
the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in affording
much training at a national level.
It
is perhaps not so much in the
field of in-service training
that
we
can learn from the Americans as in
their use of college and university
resources. Academic degrees in law-
enforcement-bachelor's, master's and
doctor's-are
quite common; nearly
100 colleges and universities are
offering courses leading to them.
What strikes the English observer,
however, is that these degrees are
generally regarded as a valuable
preparation for police service, very
often taken prior to recruitment as a
professional qualification akin to
that
of the lawyer, the doctor and the
accountant. This is all the more
challenging to our own practice in the
effect that such degrees have in attrac-
ting young men and women of good
intellectual quality into police forces.
As Dr. Gammage says, "Young men
and women of high-school graduation
age (17 to 18 years) can't get a
job
March 1964
in law enforcement but they can do
a great service for themselves and
law enforcement by attending college
...
The great benefit from a college
education is that it trains police
officers and prospective police officers
to think
...
In summary, the pro-
fessionally educated police officer is
qualified for various opportunities for
satisfying work that are not available
to the man or woman whose abilities
have not been so systematically
developed."
Dr. Gammage notes
that
there is
reason to believe that the graduate is
likelier to reach supervisory rank than
the non-graduate: he attributes this
to the ability and drive which the
getting of a degree requires, to the
knowledge gained in the process and
above all to the fair mindedness and
logicality which higher education
produces. Needless to say, the demand
for graduates by the American forces
very much exceeds the supply: but
the principle of a fair amount of
graduate entry is well established.
It
seems that the other source of
getting good youngsters is better used
here than in the States. Cadet training,
an English invention, is only just
beginning to be really accepted in
America. The police authorities there
are being driven to it more and more
by recruiting problems.
It
has been
found that the young men thus
recruited "seem to be of better quality
than is ordinarily gained through
general recruiting".
Much of Dr. Gammage's book is on
training technique and he goes into
useful detail of teaching methods and
methods of assessment. The radical
and systematic way in which American
trainers are setting about their business
can-and
should-be
profitably studied
by those concerned in this country
with police training.
143
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