Police education is broken. Can it be fixed?
A patchwork system for training police focuses too much on military approaches and not enough on de-escalation and anti-bias. Past attempts at reform haven’t led to wholesale change.
In late May, when video began circulating of George Floyd trapped under the knee of a police officer, struggling to breathe, it was the latest reminder of America’s failure to address the racism and brutality that pervades U.S. policing. For those who train and educate law enforcement officials, Floyd’s death — along with the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and other Black Americans — was also a moment of reckoning, prompting some of those educators to examine their role in preparing officers for a profession responsible for so much senseless violence.
In Virginia, where community colleges enrolled some 2,200 students last year in programs designed to train law enforcement officials, school system administrators decided it was time to review their curricula for future officers. Across the country, in California, Eloy Ortiz, chancellor of the state’s community college system, called for a similar examination of police training. A few college police academies announced their own reviews.
In Minnesota, where Floyd was killed, the interim director of the state board overseeing police education pledged to develop a “sweeping action plan” for change, while advocates pressed the legislature to pass reforms, including more investment in de-escalation training. Bills introduced in Congress in recent weeks, one by Democrats and the other by Senate Republicans, both called for more training for law enforcement officials.
But any effort to improve police education will have to contend with the reality that America’s system for training officers is a complex patchwork of hundreds of different programs that operate with virtually no CONTINUE READING: Police training is broken. Can it be fixed?
