Police Training Essay

Nowadays professional training is paid more attention as it is one of the best ways to increase job commitment and enhance performance. I think that all police officers should have free access to formal and informal courses, seminars devoted to violent death investigation, interrelations, and criminal laws. The training programs should cover also the principle of supervision and civil liability. Training plays crucial role in today’s police work because training ensures not only organizational efficiency, but also increases effectiveness and productivity of all police departments. It goes without saying that it is hardly possible to except effective work from untrained police officers. Moreover, community doesn’t feel safe if they realize that their police officers aren’t skillful and experienced enough to defend them when necessary. Nevertheless, state funding isn’t enough to solve training dilemma because of lack of money assigned to support training programs. Without money and proper funding it would be difficult to solve the problem. The purpose of training is to promote occupational and professional development of police department through specialized job-related programs. Nevertheless, training differs significantly from education because training is so-called study in the process. Education provides only theoretical background of the particular situations, whereas training develops practical skills and acquirements in real situations. However, I think that training is the second step after education as the officer should firstly realize the aspects of actions and only then should master his skills. Harry More defines training as â€Å"something like an inchoate crime†. He means that training is continuous process and can’t be ever fully accomplished. Training is always a process. Education provides knowledge and training applies it to specific situations. The goals of trainings are: To improve police officer’s performances and job commitment; To develop the sense of responsibility in police officers. It is necessary to underline that training is designed to help individuals to cope better with challenging duties and responsibilities. Simply saying, training helps to perform job better. Training is claimed to be unique because it suggests unity within particular organization. According to More and Miller, modern police training is based on the following philosophical foundations: Positive action is ensured when accompanied by acquired skills and motivation; Learning process depends not only motivation and personal abilities, but also on the instructional methods, behavior of the trainers and the climate within department; Training is considered tripartite responsibility; Training is continuous process requiring constant updating of skills and knowledge. Finally, it is important to document all formal and informal training because it helps to identify what type of training is actually needed. Documenting is defined as task analysis aimed at ensuring the relevance of training. While documenting it becomes possible to identify the tasks performed by the person who holds the position. Also documenting ensures easy assessment of training programs. Tasks analysis helps police officers to determine whether the training program is professional enough to provide skills and knowledge required for particular job. In conclusion it is necessary to note that training develops the following professional skills in police officers: interpersonal communication skills, perception and awareness, decision-making ad critical thinking, adaptability and definitiveness, oral and written communication skills.