Reversing a requirement for police to learn past high school ‘regressive’ and ‘short-sighted’: policing prof

Concerns are being raised about a so-called ‘dumbing-down’ of policing in Ontario as the provincial government says it will scrap a requirement for future officers to have at least some form of a post-secondary education.

The decision, announced Tuesday, is part of a provincial strategy the Ford Tories said is aimed at boosting police recruitment, though some experts suggest it’s not likely to have much effect.

“The Community Safety and Policing Act of 2019 has not yet come into force,” said Scott Blandford, Associate Professor and Policing and Public Safety Program Coordinator at Wilfrid Laurier University. “So, actually, the requirement for a post-secondary education is not in effect; it is grade 12 and has been grade 12 since 1982, when I started in policing.”

In that respect, Blandford said he considers the move a ‘regressive’ one in that it doesn’t align with recent recommendations from a number of different inquiries and commissions, nor does it reflect recent research supporting post-secondary education for police officers.

“It goes beyond training,” he said. “There’s a difference between training and education. Training tells you what to do while education tells you why you’re doing it and gives you the skill sets to critically analyze things which is a skill set that is highly needed in this day in age with complex investigations, the amount of cyber data that’s being utilized in investigations, and just the make-up of our communities requires a much broader skill set.”

Blandford then went on to note differences in police training and education requirements compared to some other professions, like nursing and teaching.

“To be a nurse, you have to have a four-year degree in nursing; not one in geography, not one in policing, it has to be in nursing,” he said. “To be a school teacher you have to have a four-year degree and a one or a two-year [Bachelor of Education] from a teachers college, depending on your jurisdiction.”

“So, the person who can give your son or daughter a detention in school has upwards of six years of post-secondary education but the person who can arrest your son or daughter, take away their liberties, [could potentially have] a high school education.”

According to Blandford, the question then becomes, while scrapping the rule change may mean a broader pool of potential police officers, will recruiters be rushing to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

“The reality is most recruiters have a preference toward persons with post-secondary educations because those people tend to have higher levels of maturity, because they’re older having gone through the school process, and they’ve also developed those ‘soft’ skills that are so critical to policing, like critical thinking, analytical reasoning, [and] strong communication skills,” said Blandford, adding he also considers any push to move away from that ‘short-sighted’.

“The people coming into the organization, if you’re staying with high school only, in order to move to levels of senior leadership positions — all of those senior officers have some form of post-secondary education so cutting it off at entry level is [also] not going to do any long-term service for leadership development within the organizations.”