Should a 4-Year Degree Be A Requirement to Become Dover’s New Police Chief
A recent job posting for the Dover police chief has gotten Rep. Sean Lynn to ask the Dover City Council to investigate. From what I can gather from the Delaware State News article is that Lynn is upset on three points:
- The job posting on Monster went out before being approved by the police chief selection committee
- The job posting was changed to require a bachelor’s degree
- The job posting would make sure that Deputy Chief Marvin Mailey would not be qualified
I agree with Lynn that the job posting should have never gone out until the police selection committee discussed and approved it. And that’s where I stop in agreement with Lynn.
A bachelor’s degree should be a requirement for all police officer positions within throughout Delaware. In Shuan King’s 25-part series exploring solutions for police brutality in America (link), King proposes that police officers should be required to have a 4-year college degree considering teachers, physical therapists, and many other professions require such a degree.
Somehow though, not a single state in the country requires police to have a four-year degree. While a few larger cities now require officers to have either two years of college or a mix of police and military experience, many police departments have set the bar so low that all you need to become an officer is a pretty clean criminal history, a high school diploma or GED, and a willingness to attend police academy for eight to 10 weeks. That’s just not good enough. No other profession in America with has so much on the line, so much risk involved, requires so little of its workforce.
Though Mailey might be extremely qualified to become Dover’s police chief, Lynn’s seems more upset that the job requirements might disqualify Mailey. Lynn should be embracing the idea a four-year college degree be a requirement for all police officers rather than trying to continue the Delaware Way in Dover’s police department.
Photograph by TimK MSI
Tags: Dover, Dover Police Department
Absolutely correct. All police officers should be required to have a 4 year degree, especially leaders.
Considering police jobs offer all the overtime you can eat, plus the ability to retire at a young age and start a second career on a full pension, the job should damn well require a PhD.
More Leftist academia nonsense. A 4 year degree to be a Police officer will not net good officers as will a good vetting process by experienced veterans in the police departments for which the position is open.
Please Tell me how a Marine or Soldier coming out of the military would not be a better selection for a police officer than a College grad with a sociology degree?
I’ll wait for this one.
No need to wait very long. Because police are local peace keepers and keep civic security and the military fight wars versus foreign enemies. Not even close to the same thing.
I know “education” is elite nonsense, but the people we hire to walk around with guns and act with near immunity in our communities should be highly educated.
And of course the question was should this be a prerequisite for chief not officers.
Chris – How about this? For every post I’ll just put a comment in under your name with the predictable silliness you offer every day.
From Mark Bond, professor of criminal justice at American Military University:
The studies indicate education has the following benefits on officers’ abilities and performance:
Better behavioral and performance characteristics
Better skilled with independent decision-making and problem-solving
Better skilled at articulating their thoughts
Greater aptitude for innovative thinking
Improved adaptability
Fewer on-the-job injuries and assaults
More proficient in technology
Enhanced grant writing abilities
Improved budget and management abilities
Fewer departmental disciplinary actions and internal investigations
Less likely to be involved in unethical behavior
Less likely to use force as the first response
Enhanced report writing skills
Displays maturity for age
Better at discovering extra resources
Demonstrated enhanced department responsibilities
Less use of sick time (work ethic and seeing the big picture)
Greater acceptance of minorities (diversity and cultural awareness)
Decrease in dogmatism, authoritarianism, rigidity and conservatism
Improved communication skills (oral and written)
Fewer formal citizen complaints
Promotion of higher aspirations
Better adapted to accepting critical feedback on job performance
Enhancement of minority recruitment efforts
Intellectual personal growth
Better adapted to retirement and second-career opportunities
The degree requirement will precisely match whatever level of education has been reached by the pre-selected new chief. Duh.
Exactly Vanella. What would make a soldier particularly well qualified for domestic law enforcement? We don’t want a paramilitary police force.
I would rather be bossed around by a person with a sociology degree than by a former soldier.
Our all-volunteer military is not socialized to civilian society.
The issue is the degree requirement makes sure the Deputy Chief, who is black, would not be qualified.
@Stat: Such rules are usually adopted for these cases, and they are routinely ignored when someone has the power to do so.
The New Castle County police force is structured like the State Police, and by statute, like the state police, only a captain already on the force can ascend to the chief’s job. When Tom Gordon’s chief was indicted, he had no captains loyal to him, so he tapped a lieutenant and had the law changed.
The question — someone in Dover should know — is why the council won’t hire a black chief.
@Stat: Even trolls bring up a good point.
Dover has never had an African-American police chief and the time is now that they should have one.
I would rather see a requirement of 4 years of police training to become a police officer.
@SA: In many departments that is now the standard. Those who joined 20 years ago, when that requirement was not in place, have worked their way up the ranks. To penalize a person for that at this point is prejudicial, and if the deputy chief were able to afford a lawyer he would have an excellent case.
If I had to guess, I would say that the deputy will not get the job, but will win a mid-six figure settlement with the city over it eventually.
I believe (and it’s been 4 years since I was in DE) that DSP required an associates degree in Criminal Justice before they were hired and a bachelors for any upper brass. I also seem to remember that people hired before the requirement were required to take classes towards their bachelors.
AZ requires an associates for initial hire also.
I was referring to the fact that police only receive 22 weeks academy training and 12 weeks in the field to be a cop.
“The issue is the degree requirement makes sure the Deputy Chief, who is black, would not be qualified.”
This is the heart of it. Everything else appears to be window dressing to disguise the fact that Dover has never had a national search, and always filled this internally… except now… because the guy with a shot at it is black.
Part of me hopes they pass over the qualified African American candidate because the city will be raped in court when the (inevitable) lawsuit reveals the bullshit way someone in the city concocted this requirement.
@jason: Nah, I figure they’ll be able to settle for about $250,000 or so. They’ll consider that worth it to keep Nat Turner out of the office.
And who knows? Maybe the national search will lead them to Patty Blevins.
Lol. National head hunters have her on speed dial …. apparently..
When Deputy Chief Mailey got promoted to Deputy there was a grievance filed by 5 officers for being passed over because of race and improper influence by former Mayor Carey over the promotion. The Mayor was forced to resign by Town Council and the 5 officers won a $300K settlement. 4 of the officers are white and 1 is mixed. Just sayin.
Mailey is filling in as police Chief until the nation wide search is over and a qualified candidate has been hired. js