Incorporating Higher Education into Police Training: An International Comparison of Practices and Challenges for New Recruits

Debates are ongoing in many western nations focussing on the benefits of enhancing the educational levels of new police officers to improve police performance. The debates include the President’s Task Force in the USA highlighting the importance of embedding high quality and effective training and education as one of the pillars of 21st century policing. Across England and Wales, the Strategic Policing Partnership Board still present a policing vision for 2030, describing one of their pillars being the importance of developing a learning culture within policing and working with academia to develop the knowledge base. Public Safety Canada suggest moving forward Canadian police training could benefit from engaging with academia and look towards the possibilities of academic accreditation. Whilst in Australia there has been a drive to enhance police professionalism through police training and education since a recommendation by the 1900 National Police Professionalism Implementation Advisory Committee.

The United Nations (UN) sustainability goals extol the virtues of lifelong learning, which can easily be translated to the initial and ongoing professional development of new police officer recruits. In order to explore how far contemporary policing organisations have moved towards Volmer’s (1933) concept of blending police training with higher education for new police recruits who are required to work within the complexities of 21st century policing. This paper has compiled and compared the current education and training routes to entry as new police officer recruits in California, USA, England and Wales, UK, Ontario, Canada and Tasmania, Australia.