Criminal Justice
CJ 1010-048-F11 Intro to Criminal Justice
In this Criminal Justice course, we read a book called "Exploring the Police, a Book of Readings" by John Hill. We did many discussions on what we learned about the everyday life of a police officer. This class was very interesting and made me think about how my life would be as a police officer, and how it would affect me and my family. We also wrote a term paper on, if we believe a police officer needs a college education. |
|
Do Police Officers Need a College Education.pdf Size : 141.805 Kb Type : pdf |
Reflection on Criminal Justice College Paper
Our term paper was was on "Do you think police officers need a college education." Before I even started this assignment, I thought that I knew the right answer, at least what I believed was the right answer. I thought that yes, police officer's do need a college education. This writing assignment was a 4-5 page research paper, that required the APA style format. I have never had to write a research paper, that actually required me to go to the library. In the library I learned how to search for books, as well as peer reviewed journals. I printed and copied all of the research and started reading all about the studies that have involved police officers and their need, or not their need to have a college education.
It took me about two weeks to compile of the information that I had obtained from the library, to get started on the writing assignment. Out of the information, I learned that police officer's actually have a very well formed training camp, as well as ways to learn about what their duty entails. I also learned that a lot of police officer's when they leave training all that they learned pretty much goes out the window and they learn on a day to day basis and from their superiors. From the research I ended up finding that out of the studies that they have conducted, there have been no findings that acutally show that a police officer will better perform if they have a college degree. They may be more educated but as far as police work, college level education really does not make a difference.
I found all of this very interesting, seems how at the beginning I had my mind set up that a police officer should have a college education. This course was extremely interesting and I look forward to the rest of the Criminal Justice courses that SLCC has to offer.
