“They Need More Training!” A National Level Analysis of Police Academy Basic Training Priorities

• Date: 01 December 2021
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/10986111211013311
• Author: John J. Sloan,Eugene A. Paoline
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

“They Need More

Training!” A National

Level Analysis of Police

Academy Basic Training

Priorities

John J. Sloan III

1

and

Eugene A. Paoline III

2

Abstract

Recurring incidents of Black citizens killed or injured during interactions with police

has led to calls for “more training” of officers, including new recruits. Prior research

on academy-based police recruit training has centered on evaluation and heavily

relied on case studies. The current study overcomes these limitations by analyzing

the structure and content of academy-based basic training using secondary data

collected from the population (N ¼591) of U.S. police academies. Although we

found significant mean differences across academies in total required contact

hours needed to graduate and with how the hours were distributed across training

areas, we also found academies adopted the same core curriculum consisting of six

major “themes” and topics (n¼39) comprising them. We also found academies

prioritized core areas of training in certain areas, while requiring far fewer hours

in others. Implications of our results for basic training of recruits and suggestions for

future research are then presented.

Keywords

police academies, pre-service training, police socialization

1

Department of Criminal Justice, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United

States

2

Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States

Corresponding Author:

Eugene A. Paoline III, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, 12805 Pegasus Drive,

Orlando, FL 32816, United States.

Email: eugene.paoline@ucf.edu

Police Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/10986111211013311

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2021, Vol. 24(4) 486 –518

Sloan and Paoline 487

The first American police department to employ personnel who were full-time,

paid and sworn was established in Boston in 1838 (Walker, 1977). The lack of

personnel standards for hiring officers as well as the absence of formal pre-

service training was a negative feature of this department, and those that incre-

mentally followed, and would be at the heart of a widespread reform of police

(Uchida, 2015). Generally credited with leading such reforms was August

Vollmer, who viewed pre-service training as one of several bedrocks of a

“professional” police officer (Vollmer, 1936). Interestingly, systematic use of

training academies for police recruits did not become commonplace until the

1950s. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, academy training was under

constant scrutiny for either the (low) number of contact hours (President’s

Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, 1967) or

the need to expand training curricula beyond traditional assumptions regarding

the crime fighting dimensions of police work (Christopher, 1991; National

Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1967).

Contemporary policing has not been immune to criticisms of academy train-

ing. For example, continued efforts to mend the fractured relationship between

the police and the public (especially those of color in disadvantaged neighbor-

hoods) following a series of high profile use of (deadly) force incidents involving

white officers and unarmed Black citizens beginning in the mid-2010s and con-

tinuing through 2020, resulted in some reformers claiming that police need more

training in “guardian-style policing.” (Brooks, 2020; Robinson, 2020). To the

extent that altering academy-based pre-service training of police is being con-

sidered, reformers must first take stock of what sort of pre-service or basic law

enforcement training is offered at police academies nationwide and affiliated

with various law enforcement agencies and postsecondary educational

institutions.

The problem is that to date, empirical evidence on police training academies

has focused on such topics as predicting the performance of recruits enrolled in

basic law enforcement training, evaluations of a particular type of innovative

approach to training, or conceptual critiques of needed additions to curricula

based on limited observations of training academies. Absent from research

inquiries of American police academies are studies that provide assessments

of, or insights into, the structure, organization, and topical coverage of basic

law enforcement training curricula and how hours in these curricula are ulti-

mately distributed.

The current study aims to fill this empirical void by analyzing survey data

collected from over 500 police training academies as part of the Bureau of

Justice Statistics’ Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies (CLETA)

program. Specifically, we identify how basic law enforcement training curricula

are organized and assess how the hours comprising these curricula are distrib-

uted across multiple thematic and topical areas of instruction by police academy

2Police Quarterly 0(0)

488 Police Quarterly 24(4)

affiliation. Our results should help inform ongoing debate over whether con-

temporary police recruits need more training or different training.

Historical Significance and Development of Pre-Service

Police Recruit Training

No person would dare place his life in the hands of shoemakers, chauffeurs,

bricklayers, or persons engaged in any other trade or occupation. When he is ill,

he wants a medical man, professionally trained, experienced in the practiced of his

profession. If a skyscraper or a large bridge is to be constructed, we certainly do

not go to the medical profession, legal profession for designs for the structure; we

go to the experienced bridge engineers. But it has not yet been recognized that the

work of the modern policeman requires professional training comparable to that

required for the most skilled profession. (Vollmer, 1936, p. 231)

Along with the removal of local political influence over decision making, the

lack of personnel standards and training were at the heart of the professional

reform of the police at the turn of the 20th century (Walker, 1977). Lead reform-

er August Vollmer’s largely suggestive calls to establish standards for the selec-

tion and instruction of police recruits were actually formalized during his

involvement in the Wickersham Commission on Law Observance and

Enforcement from 1929-1930. As part of the first study of American criminal

justice, Vollmer’s Police Administration report reiterated previous pleas to

recruit and scientifically train highly qualified and educated police officers in

to dealing with the complexities of crime (Vollmer, 1932). Unfortunately, due to

financial reasons Vollmer’s recommendations for pre-service training fell on

deaf ears. That is, While federal police (e.g., agents of the Federal Bureau of

Investigation) were being trained extensively prior to employment – and had

been since the 1920s – training academies for local police did not emerge until

the latter part of the1950s and did so only sporadically (Walker, 1977).

Vollmer’s vision for the content of police training concentrated on teaching

recruits about the various causes of crime and ways to properly prevent and

scientifically investigate it (Douthit, 1975). As a result, academy pre-service

training curriculum consisted of topics related to efficient crime fighting techni-

ques and foundational operational demands of the job (e.g., patrol tactics,

search and arrest procedures, weapon proficiency, etc.). While these topics

were pillars for producing a “professional” police officer, subsequent highly

visible examinations of police practices pointed to the unintended consequences

of this instruction as well as the need to expand academy curricula beyond

traditional police functions. For example, the National Advisory Commission

on Civil Disorders (“Kerner Commission”) (1968, p. 270), convened to examine

Sloan and Paoline 3