‘Police

ABSTRACT

Based on in-depth interviews regarding 12 police students’ experience from in-field training, the present study seeks to uncover the meaning and content of what matters when learning police work in practice. Deeply rooted in the students’ experience of participating in in-field training, the present paper presents findings from the following issue: How do police students experience participation and relationship during in-field training? The question has as its starting point sociocultural theory regarding learning professional practice. The analysis generates findings as follows: to be put in front, tutoring as on-going descriptive conversations and to be taken care of. The paper draws on this conceptual structure as a springboard for the ongoing discussion about what matters in educating students undergoing police training in higher education, and in particular the significance of embodied learning and professional and emotional support in learning the police profession.Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the following persons for comments and suggestions on the paper: Erik Christensen, Oddbjørg Edvardsen, Tina Handegård, Nick Ingham and reviewers for reading and commenting on the paper.Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributorsSome people believe that stressing individual instances of excessive use of force trivializes the work of an officer. They point to the numbers released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that indicate only 0.5 percent of the 44 million Americans who interacted with a police officer suffered threats or experienced force. But statistics like these miss the point. Relations with the police in communities of color have always been strained by the history of brutality. Contemporary instances of police brutality reinforce this strained relationship. White Americans, unaware of this history, are eager to write them off as isolated incidents rather than acknowledging modern-day discrimination.

African Americans aren’t the only demographic with a historic distrust of the police. The racial context of a city is extremely important for how citizens, black and white, evaluate the police. Police in majority-black cities are held more accountable by white residents than the police departments in majority-white cities. Community-police relations tend to be worse in majority-black cities because white residents gave the police department lower marks.

No one denies that police officers have highly stressful jobs. Police officers attempt to maintain law and order in a country that is overflowing with guns. The stress from this can result in heightened cynicism, excessive aggression, and even temporary memory loss. To reduce this stress, some police departments are now instructing officers to slow down the situation and call for backup. But many police officers feel that calling for backup is a sign of weakness.The ability to defend oneself is an important skill for police officers to have. But the emphasis on firearm skills and self-defense should not compromise the training on mediation skills and conflict management. Police departments only offer an average of eight hours in mediation skills. Moreover, only 39 percent of agencies mandate that all officers go through conflict management training. The importance of conflict management cannot be underestimated. Police officers need to have the necessary training and knowledge to manage their emotional and physiological reactions, particularly in high stress situations.

Instead of viewing police officers as guardians of a community, the rhetoric around the police often revolves around a warrior image. The political discourse during the so-called “War on Drugs” painted police officers as foreign occupiers in communities where they waged an ever-lasting battle against the enemy, which included all residents. But this warrior mentality obscures an important part of policing: the interaction between police officers and the community. People care more about how they are treated by the police than about falling crime rates. When a police officer views himself as a guardian, he or she cares not only about reducing crime but also protecting the residents. King County in Washington State developed the LEAD model to supplant the warrior mentality. Under this model, office training emphasizes listening and explaining the decision-making process to residents. The key of the LEAD model lies in diverting drug offenses into social services instead of relegating them to the criminal justice system.