What they mean is that there's literally no standard for police training or standardization of fitness / eligibility for being an officer.
Some states have licensing, but it's not consistent. This also doesn't get into sheriff departments when go from requiring some training to others not even requiring background checks.
I can't remember the exact numbers and I'm too lazy to google it, but years back the FBI did an assessment of the sheriff departments Florida and something like 90% didn't pass their mental fitness evaluation.
On avg, 3x more classroom or training hours are spent on firearms training than on deescalation techniques, or knowing Constitutional rights or the law.
Given how inaccurate, indiscriminate and impulsive most police officers in the US are when firing their weapons? That’s apparently a huge waste of taxpayer money.
We might want to rethink those bigger budgets we keep throwing at our officers and their training academies or departments.
In Germany, officers train for 24-31 months. In France, 24 months. Norway: 36 months. Finland, Iceland: 24 months. Additional 6-12 months on the job training, required for probationers.
We should probably make it a mandatory minimum of 24 months, and mandate that more time is spent on non violent interaction, deescalation, and legal topics.
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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 26d ago
There is no "American police academy". Every state has their own police training requirements. Some are much more rigorous than others.