My Final Essay

Cory Havlicsek
Comp 106
November 18, 2009

Should A College Education Be a Requirement For Police Officers?

Police officers are needed in every society all over the world. Without some kind of neutral force keeping the peace, what would our world be like today? Murderers, rapists and other violent criminals would roam freely and commit crimes when ever given the chance. Yet, even though we do have police officers, as well as more sophisticated equipment to help them, there is still an ever climbing rate of crimes, chaos and dysfunction. Is it the police officers’ fault? Are they not doing their job effectively? Should police officers have to have a college degree to even be considered for employment?

These are all valid questions, but mainly would a college degree make a police officer more qualified for a job? Some officers beg to differ. Officer Dan Foley of the Wyandotte Police Station doesn’t think so. I had a chance to ask Officer Foley some questions in October of 2009, about what his thoughts where on the issue, and if Michigan requires any education after high school in order to become an officer of the law. Officer Foley told me that he has been a patrol officer for about twenty three and a half years now. I asked him if he had ever had any college education prior to becoming an officer and he told me that he has had one year of community college but never received a degree. I proceeded to ask him what college he attended and if it was required that he take college courses to become an officer? He replied that he attended Henry Ford Community College and no, it was not required at the time to become a patrol officer. Then I asked if it was required that new candidates have a college degree now to become a police officer. His exact words were, “no it is not required that you need a college degree to become a patrol officer now, but if you would like to be a higher rank than that of a patrol officer you do need a degree, whether it be an Associates or a Bachelors.”

Then I asked him a personal question, “Do you think that all officers should need a college degree to be employed?” He replied, “No I do not think all officers should need a college degree to be employed because what you learn on the streets cannot be taught in a class room or lecture hall.”

This is somewhat true, but wouldn’t a college degree help to prepare you better for what you encounter on the streets? Many people think so, including most of the students in my Composition 106 class. One of my survey questions I asked was, Do you think police officers should need a college degree to be considered for employment?, and 67% of the students who answered the question thought so. This isn’t exactly concrete proof that officers should need a college degree but it’s a great start. In fact, Plano city officials cited studies indicating that officers with college degrees have fewer discipline problems than those without. In a city like Detroit for example, with many problems in it’s past, could use a better reputation with its police officers.

Yes, it would most likely cut down on disciplinary problems if police officers did have a college education, but what about military experience? Some stations that have raised their requirements for an officer to four years of college have also accepted three years in the military as an alternative. This to me is another huge step in law enforcement. The main goal here is not to have super intelligent officers, but rather a more effective police officer that can identify a situation and asses a solution faster and safely. Military training is perfect for this kind of work. The theory here is that, since military training is so disciplined and rigorous, this would make our fellow police officers more disciplined and therefore we would have less civil cases against police officers’ abusing their authority and getting away with it.

A great example of this would be the Rodney King case, where he was beaten with batons and tasered multiple times for “resisting” arrest. The LAPD said that he was “resisting” arrest, but for those who have seen the video know for a fact that even if he wanted to resist arrest King couldn’t, because he was being struck over and over so he never had a chance to. An amazing fifty-six blows along with six kicks and two tasers is what those police officers felt was necessary to subdue King. A year later four officers were indicted on charges that involved violating King’s civil rights and were sentenced to thirty months in prison. Laurence Powell and Timothy Wind, two of those four officers, were college drop outs and never received any degree. Both never even went more than three semesters.

I believe that if all of these officers would have had any college background such as a Bachelors or even an Associates they would not have made this mistake that ultimately cost them their jobs. Even better, if they would have been in any branch of the military that receives disciplinary training, that would have changed the outcome a great deal. It would have given them the notion of when enough is enough and when subduing a criminal becomes assaulting and maliciously beating a criminal. Another fact is that only one of these officers was a rookie, so no one can argue the fact that it was a fresh young cop just abusing his/her authority. We are talking about people who have been on the force from anywhere between three years and fourteen years. Sergeant Cornell Koon the supervising officer at the King arrest was a fourteen year veteran, Laurence Powell one of the officers on tape was a three year veteran, Theodore Briseno a nine year veteran, and Timothy Wind a seven year veteran of the Kansas suburban police force, but a rookie on the Los Angeles Police Force.

Now, I’m not saying every officer who is on the force now needs to go back to school, but maybe the ones with the most reprimands should consider anger management classes and have to be evaluated before returning to active duty. Less than 5% of local police departments with more than 100 officers require four-year degrees, says Louis Mayo, executive director of the Police Association for College Education. If we can raise this to at least 20% I think this would significantly lower the number of police brutality cases while increasing the efficiency of protecting our citizens and people of America.

To answer some questions I asked in this paper, yes, I think it is the officers’ fault along with the department where they are employed. It is up to the department as well as the officer to know when protecting the community becomes destroying it. The officer should know better and the department should enforce harsh penalties for brutality mistakes. Yes, not every police officer is perfect, no one is, but they can at least try to cut down on such cases. I think we are more than capable of reducing police brutality but I believe it starts with the schooling prior to becoming a police officer. The more schooling required, the less discipline problems there are. The less discipline problems there are, the less brutality cases there are. With this comes an increase in safety on the streets as well as the on going feud between white officers’ and black criminals.

Survey Responses

My survey unfortunately did not turn up with as many participants as I wanted or needed. I only had three people take the survey and I sent it to countless friends and posted the link on facebook. It yielded the results I was hoping, but the participation wasn't what i hoped it would be.

Link to my survey

Click Here to take survey

Misuse of apostrophes

This is a sign by my grandmothers house in Trenton. I don't think I will be sending my kids to this school haha.

This is a shot of the newly built, 44,000 sq ft, Wyandotte Police Station.

The Sign of the Wyandotte Police Station at the Driveway off of Northline Road.

A frontal view of the Wyandotte Police Station. It was finished on October 21st 2008.

Screen Shot of My Second Life Character

Second life to me is a virtual world where anyone can anything they want. Its kind of a way of letting people choose want they want to look like and act like. This game lets you become someone you can't be in your real life.

Revision of Draft #1

The first draft of my Academic Article Summaries Paper was flawed in a couple of aspects. After receiving comments on my blog about it and reading it over my self I have changed all of these errors. My paper seemed like it jumped around a lot and didn’t really have that great of transitions as well. I think what helped me out the most were the blog posts from other students. I mean when I read it I could find grammar errors and other spelling mistakes but I definitely could not see the main flaw in my summary. With other people reading it, I got an outside opinion on my paper and that helped me tremendously. I lacked transitions throughout the paper and didn’t really do a good job of summing up my thoughts and articles in the conclusion. Also it didn’t meet the length requirement which some one noticed and informed me about. I also did not mention the names of my articles which kind of made it confusing to the reader because they couldn’t tell when I was talking about a new article or the same one. After strengthening my transitions and including the names of the articles I used, my summary was already looking much better. Then I corrected all of the grammatical errors and spelling and went into a little more depth with some of my points. This lengthened my paper to meet and actually surpass the requirement and I felt it was complete.

Academic Article Summary

Cory Havlicsek
Comp 106
October 2, 2009

Academic Articles Summary
Police officers are needed in every society all over the world. Without some kind of neutral force keeping the peace, what would our world be like? Murderers, rapists and other criminals would roam freely and commit crimes whenever given the chance. Yet, even though we do have police officers, there still is an ever climbing rate of crimes and chaos. Is if the police officers fault? Are they not doing their job effectively, or do they simply need help in the age of technology?
First we look at the police officer. In the first article I read, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals stated that if the minimum condition for employment was more than just a high school diploma of GED our police departments would be more professional and modernized. Meaning that as a prerequisite for employment you must have some kind of college education. Now some states such as Arizona and Florida already require this. According to the Minnesota Post (1978) police officers with a college degree handled stress better, worked with fellow officers more effectively and exhibited less aggression and abuse of authority. I think if every state had this as a requirement our police forces across America would be substantially more effective.
Maybe it’s not the police officer but the criminals themselves. Another article I read focused on sex offending criminals. Mainly, how we could as a community, stop these criminals from reoffending. Now our state of Michigan, along with all the others, already has registration and community notification program to keep everyone informed about these sex offenders. More than twenty states have restricted where these offenders can live. So what more can we do? The author proposes that prisons and jails make it mandatory for sex offenders to undergo psychiatric treatment. Of course, we as tax payers would fund this, but how far is one willing to go to keep the streets clean and safe? Also, what I didn’t like about this article was that the author never asks how effective this would be.
Maybe technological advances in police equipment would help our officers in the line of duty. One area of focus is preventing pursuits. One idea that actually exists now, is somehow being able to electronically disable the car by disrupting the twelve volt current between the alternator and the coil, I thought this was ingenious. Further reading revealed to me that this kind of technology has already been used in a pursuit situation. An officer, John Smith, of the Denver police department was in pursuit of a 2005 Chevrolet corvette for speeding. When he entered the license plate number into his cruisers on board computer, the car came up as stolen. As the corvette accelerated in an attempt to try to elude Officer Smith, Smith flipped on a switch on his dash board. Immediately a coded radio frequency was transmitted from the police cruiser. When this frequency was received by the corvette’s factory installed circuitry, the engine shut off. Pursuit averted! This seems like something of the future! This to me is the most interesting and safe technological advance in police equipment.
In the never ending battle to try to decrease the number of crimes, police need all the help they can get. All of the ideas mentioned in this paper are great and sound effective, but I would like to see these ideas being used more, or even considered more often. I, myself, would like to be a police officer and any one of these ideas would contribute to keeping me and all other officers safe in this chaotic and dangerous line of work.

Link to my survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9FJDnrSV9JbDakjmdT2aLQ_3d_3d

Compare and Contrast: Godin and Shirky Videos

The Godin and Shirky videos are mostly alike but also differ in many ways. One way they are alike is that they both deal with how the media is affected by new ways information can be spread or passed. Like the internet for example: both Godin and Shirky talk about how the internet is good to stay connected and find new groups people, but it is also bad how fast false information can be spread. Shirky talks about how, specifically China, is affected by this new age method of passing on news. The earthquakes that happened in China were a confidential thing at the time and at the same time they were happening people were "tweeting" about them and blogging about them before China could get the real facts out about it. On the other hand Godin mainly talks about how tribes and the internet is good for finding the tribes. Particularly the smaller ones that no one thinks are out there. For example the mascot tribe or the pirate tribe. These people aren't exactly out on street corners promoting their club or tribe so the internet is a better way to find and stay connected to the smaller tribes that no one knows about or doesn't even know exist. The main focus here is that the internet is good in some ways and bad in others. You can’t exactly monitor it like China is trying to do so you will always have false information but you will also never be “in the dark” so to speak about anything ever again, whether it’s true or false. So all in all the internet gives people amazing power at their finger tips but also has a major flaw in it so that you can’t believe everything you see or hear. But now if you want to make a difference or take a stand on something you can and the internet makes it that much easier.

Screen shot

When I see this screen shot the first thing that comes to mind is college student. From the picture of the two young people (me and my girlfriend) anyone can tell that who ever is working on that computer is a college student. Not to mention blogspot and CTools is also in the shot. Thats what really gives it away. I think of friends and technology and how fast the tech industry is growing. Its actually scary to think of how fast the world is thinking and producing new ideas. Which is why composing, changes in digital spaces. You don't have all this space to do what ever you want with, your confined to the digital parameters of your desktop or laptop. You can only choose what options the computer gives you and thats it. Blogs like this one will help many people understand the digital composing process. Its kind of a translator for people who don't get this process. If we get more people to participate in blogs or social networking sites like facebook and myspace less people will be "in the dark" about computers and they won't be afraid of trying new things with them.