Police Students Research Articles

Attrition of Police Officers With Immigrant Background

Recruiting police officers with immigrant backgrounds has a limited effect if many of these recruits leave the police service. The dropout and attrition rates among officers with immigrant backgrounds are also an important indicator of the challenges this group faces when joining the police profession. We investigated police education dropout patterns and attrition rates among police students and officers with immigrant backgrounds. Our study is based on detailed longitudinal data with total coverage of the population, which were previously unavailable for police career studies. Using logistic regression and coarsened exact matching, we analysed administrative registry data covering all individuals admitted to the Norwegian police university college (1995–2010, N = 6570) and all police-educated staff employed in the Norwegian police (1995–2014, N = 7001). Students and police officers with non-Western immigrant backgrounds have a greater tendency to both dropout of education and leave the police service. Prior academic performance can only partly explain these higher educational dropout rates. Female and males with non-Western immigrant backgrounds have similar dropout patterns. Our results provide a rationale for developing policy aimed at not only recruiting, but also retaining police officers with immigrant backgrounds.

Effects of selection and socialization within the police force on officers’ attitudes toward punishment and authoritarianism: a comparison between police students and the general population

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to uncover effects of selection and socialization on the perceived need for punishment within the police force. Punitiveness and authoritarianism of police officers can be relatively stable attitudes that can already appear when individuals choose the police profession in terms of a selection effect. Two effects of institutional socialization are examined. Firstly, the effect of the time already spent at the university within the police sample. Secondly, the effect due to increasing age and work experience. The analyses are based on data from police students with and without prior police work experience (n = 274) and a representative sample of the general population (n = 892). The results indicate that there are hardly any selection effects. The duration of the police studies has a reducing effect on punitiveness and authoritarianism. Police students with prior work experience as police officers are less punitive and authoritarian with increasing age. The cause of this age effect, which is not directly related to work experience, is discussed.

Judging the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies using retrieval effort cues

SummaryRecent research has shown that incorrect statements in eyewitness testimonies contain more cues to effortful memory retrieval than correct statements. In two experiments, we attempted to improve judgments of testimony accuracy by informing participants about these effort cues. Participants read eyewitness testimony transcripts and judged statement accuracy. Performance was above chance in both experiments, but there was only a significant effect of the effort‐cue instruction in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, we also compared judgment accuracy between police detectives, police students and laypersons, and found no significant difference, in contrast to previous studies. Moreover, the current study corroborates previous findings that (a) judging testimony accuracy is a difficult task and (b) people spontaneously rely on effort cues to some extent when judging accuracy. However, a complete reliance on effort cues showed substantially better performance than relying on one's own judgments skills at best, and offered equal performance at worst.

Police as cop show viewers

Despite the popularity of Australian television drama and reality series featuring police, there has been a paucity of research into what these programs communicate about real world policing. These ‘cop shows’ are productive forms of public relations for police agencies, particularly the co-produced reality TV variety, and as such are valuable broadcasting and policing commodities. As complex audio-visual texts, cop shows can generate myriad meanings and messages. As cultural objects these programs also rely upon and generate expressions of national identity. Drawing on 25 interviews with policing students and serving and retired police officers, this qualitative research provides insight into how prospective, current and retired police interpret televisual representations of the profession. It was found that interviewees more deeply embedded in the police culture were more cynical of the public relations messages and contested the role of women, while aspirants to the profession were more likely to endorse depictions of a diverse work force. Although interviewees regarded Australian cop shows as reflecting national attributes and cultural context, they reflected on aspects of cop shows produced in other countries to articulate what locally produced cop shows were not.

Becoming a member of the police. Workplace expectations of police students during in-field training

ABSTRACT Research into workplace learning explores mostly the learner’s perspective, which is also the case within police research. This paper focuses, instead, on police officers who have the role of field-training officers (FTO) and responsibility for presenting, teaching and guiding police students attending the higher education programme. The aim is to characterise the FTOs’ expectations of the students as learners, and discuss how these expectations shape the professional development of the future police officers. Through analysis of interviews with the FTOs, we show how police socialisation is sedimented and perpetuated through situated learning in the workplace. The findings show that the FTOs’ expectations can be characterised as opposites concerning students’ participation in-house and participation on-patrol. In-house, the FTOs expected the students’ participation to be passive, adaptive and obedient, while ‘on-patrol’ the FTOs expected that the students took a highly active role. The paper discusses how the social dimension of learning affects the police students’ participation and progression into the police profession, and, in particular, the development their professional identity as future police officers who can contribute to, and further develop, police practice.

Neuromuscular compatibility and its relationship to the accurate shooting of the Kalashnikov automatic rifle for police college students

The research problem was demonstrated by the fact that firing with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle requires students to have a strong ability in neuromuscular compatibility and Through the experience of the two researchers, it was necessary to study the relationship between neuromuscular compatibility and the accuracy of throwing with a gun to find out the type and strength of the relationship to take place in the event of a correlation relationship diagnosing the main points to master the process of throwing and Develop solutions that can lead to a stronger relationship.
 Research Objective: To identify the relationship between neuromuscular compatibility and the accuracy of shooting with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle among police college students.
 Research hypothesis: There is a correlation between neuromuscular compatibility and the accuracy of shooting with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle among police college students , The two researchers used the descriptive method with the relational relations method, as it suits the nature of the research problem, And that the research community are students of the Police College, the stage of the applicant, who are (288) students, as the number of the selected sample of them reached (20) students, at a rate of (7%)
 CONCLUSIONS: Neuromuscular compatibility is significantly correlated with the accuracy of shooting with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, That the accuracy of throwing is significantly related to neuromuscular compatibility

“But I’m Standing Inside Right Now and I Need Help”: Security Projects and the Perceptions Of Campus Security

Acts of violence at institutions of higher education have been heavily publicized, leading security on post-secondary campuses to become a hotbed issue in the media and in the daily lives of those who attend them. With extensive media coverage of events such as the attack on Jeanne Clery, and the mass shootings at Northern Illinois University, Dawson College, and Virginia Tech, many post-secondary schools are working to enhance their security practices. The present study uses Valverde’s (2001; 2008; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2014) security projects framework to examine the lived experiences of security measures on a Canadian urban-integrated campus. Through semi-structured interviews with administrators, campus police officers, students, and faculty, and constructivist grounded theorizing, this study provides an in-depth examination of security from multiple perspectives within one institution. Specifically, the study explores how the jurisdiction and logic of security projects have shaped perceptions of safety and security on campus. The resultant negative interactions of this jurisdictional model have affected the way students viewed security on campus and threatened the students’ perception of the campus police.

In-field training in the police: Learning in an ethical grey area?

PurposeAlthough workplace learning is an important part of professional learning, little is known about the unethical aspects of workplace learning. This study aims to describe students’ learning experiences from in-field training in the police. This paper aims to examine how workplace learning can challenge proper ethical professional development and thus become a question of ethical concern.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on open-ended questions in a questionnaire among Norwegian police students (N = 277) who had ended their one year’s in-field training and had returned to campus for the third and final year of police education. The data are analysed by means of a qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe paper presents two findings. First, the students learn best from assignments that push them beyond their comfort zone. Second, students struggle with their own expectations of themselves as police officers. The findings suggest that workplace learning leaves students aspiring to demonstrate their capability to be a police officer, rather than focusing on learning to be a police officer.Practical implicationsThe study can provide organisations such as educations, public services and businesses with better understanding on how to enrich learning in their on-the-job training manuals and programmes to evolve ethical professional behaviour. Ethical considerations can help leadership to improve efficiency and performance at the workplace.Originality/valueHow the potentially unethical aspects of workplace learning can influence the profession’s ethical attitude is an understudied topic in studies on learning to become a professional.

Perceived and Measured Physical Fitness of Police Students.

The physical fitness of police officers needs to support good health and physical performance. Physical fitness comprises a considerable amount of training for police students who are to become police officers. However, to what degree police students are able to perceive their fitness level and differentiate between health-related and performance-related physical fitness is unknown. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of differentiation between health-related and performance-related physical fitness using physical self-concept and measured indicators of physical fitness. The second aim of this study was to investigate the association between components of physical self-concept and measured indicators of physical fitness of police students. The sample of 177 police students of both sexes (98 males and 79 females) completed a 40-item physical self-description questionnaire and their physical abilities were assessed for handgrip strength, standing long jump, 30 s sit-ups, and 12-min running. Principal component analysis established health-related and performance-related physical fitness from both perceived and measured physical fitness measures. Correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between the perceived and measured physical fitness. Results suggest small to moderate ability to recognize the level of certain physical abilities, indicating the association between psychological mechanisms and biological functioning.

Antimuslimische Einstellungen in der Polizei?

ZusammenfassungAntimuslimische Einstellungen, die in Zusammenhang mit diskriminierenden und gruppenbezogenen menschenfeindlichen Übergriffen gebracht werden, sind besonders verheerend für die Polizei. Immer wieder gerät die Polizei in den Verdacht, auf dem »rechten« Auge blind zu sein. In diesem Beitrag werden Ergebnisse einer Befragung an Kommissaranwärterinnen und -anwärtern (N = 364) vorgestellt, die 2016 und 2017 an der Hochschule der Akademie der Polizei Hamburg durchgeführt wurde. Die Studie berichtet Befunde zu selbstberichteter Kontakthäufigkeit und -qualität mit als muslimisch wahrgenommenen Menschen im privaten und beruflichen Bereich und deren Zusammenhänge mit Vorurteilen und Stereotypen gegenüber Muslimen. Insgesamt berichten die Befragten negative Stereotype gegenüber als muslimisch wahrgenommenen Männern sowie Dehumanisierungstendenzen gegenüber Muslimen. Jedoch weisen sie nicht substanziell negativere Vorurteile gegenüber Muslimen auf als die Allgemeinbevölkerung. Während selbstberichtete berufliche Kontakte mit als muslimisch wahrgenommenen Menschen mit stärkeren selbstberichteten Vorurteilen und negativeren Stereotypen in Zusammenhang stehen, stehen selbstberichtete positive und private Kontakte mit geringeren Vorurteilen und weniger negativen Stereotypen in Zusammenhang. Interaktionen zwischen selbstberichteten privaten und beruflichen Kontakten werden ebenso wie die Rolle der Sozialen Dominanzorientierung untersucht und praktische Implikationen der Erkenntnisse diskutiert.

The impact of a preparation phase on the development of practical knowledge in police education: a comparison of two conditions for preparing a practical scenario training

ABSTRACT This article examines how a virtual case that prepares students for practical scenario training affects police students’ performance in a practical scenario training. This study included 69 Swedish police students at the Basic Training Programme for Police Officers – 35 assigned to a virtual police case (VCASE) and 34 assigned to a conventional teacher-led (CON) lesson. A questionnaire captured how students experience training conditions and a blind assessment by police officers evaluated the students’ performance in the practical scenario training. The results show that both the VCASE and CON participants thought that the training they received before the practical training was meaningful and motivating. However, to a significantly higher degree than the CON students, the VCASE students thought that their preparation helped them during the practical training. The expert assessment of one practical scenario (stopping a suspected stolen car) showed that the VCASE participants performed better than the CON participants in three out of five criteria. In conclusion, the VCASE and the CON training had different effects on the students’ performance in the practical scenario: compared to the CON training, the VCASE training seemed to more effectively help the police students solve the situations presented in the practical scenario training.

Ambulance and police students’ experiences of being first on site after a fatal traffic crash – A qualitative study

• Ambulance and police students acting as bystanders in a critical incident. • Knowledge and skills from MCI exercise being put to test. • MCI exercise enabling positive collaboration within and across student groups. • Reflections related to interactions and efforts on site and empathy for the injured.

EFFECTS OF SPECIALIZED PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND ADDITIONAL AEROBIC TRAINING ON AEROBIC ENDURANCE OF POLICE STUDENTS

Aim. The aim of this study was to investigate if the SPE classes were sufficient to improve the police students’ aerobic endurance over the period of 12 weeks; and to investigate if two additional aerobic trainings per week may have an effect on the students’ aerobic endurance. Materials and Methods. An initial and final estimated maximal oxygen consumption of 233 (♀87 and ♂146) police students were assessed at the begging and after 12 weeks of training. All participants were performing SPE classes as part of the curriculum, while experimental groups (♀39 and ♂81) conducted two additional trainings for aerobic endurance. A repeated-measure analysis of variance was used to analyze the effects of the treatments and the differences between the treatments. Results. The SPE with two additional aerobic endurance trainings significantly improved students’ aerobic endurance in both sexes (14 %, p < 0.01). Two aerobic trainings alone had large effects on aerobic endurance female (11.66 %, p < 0.01) and male (12.15 %, p < 0.01) police students. Conclusions. Relatively simple aerobic training, applied two times per week, could provide meaningful changes in aerobic endurance. Practitioners could use the period while police students are at the university to educate them on how to organize and conduct basic phy­sical training on their own.

Challenging and destabilizing official discourses: irony as a resistance resource in institutional talk

ABSTRACT The article examines Swedish police students’ and officers’ situational use of irony as a resource for engaging in workplace resistance. Through irony, managerial discourses and policies are destabilized, giving voice to an alternative reality. The resistance towards the police’s official discourses reinforces a gap between the management and officers in the ranks, strengthening in-group autonomy and norms among the rank and file, but also disrupting organizational control. Irony was restricted to, but also opened up for, ‘safe spaces’, suggesting that counter-hegemonic discourses among police employees are constrained by contextual factors such as their socio-political environment and organizational culture. Irony also helped to promote social harmony and sustain ‘conflict- free venues and encounters’, and the double nature of irony should be seen as a powerful resource for expressing criticism while avoiding sanctions. The article suggests that ironically expressed resistance towards institutional conditions is enabled and created by the very same conditions.

‘Police students’ experience of participation and relationship during in-field training’.

ABSTRACT Based on in-depth interviews regarding 12 police students’ experience from in-field training, the present study seeks to uncover the meaning and content of what matters when learning police work in practice. Deeply rooted in the students’ experience of participating in in-field training, the present paper presents findings from the following issue: How do police students experience participation and relationship during in-field training? The question has as its starting point sociocultural theory regarding learning professional practice. The analysis generates findings as follows: to be put in front, tutoring as on-going descriptive conversations and to be taken care of. The paper draws on this conceptual structure as a springboard for the ongoing discussion about what matters in educating students undergoing police training in higher education, and in particular the significance of embodied learning and professional and emotional support in learning the police profession.

What students who perform in “secondary roles” can learn from scenario training in vocational education

Context: Learning through scenario training and live simulation in vocational education is generally regarded as an effective tool for developing professional knowledge. However, previous research has largely overlooked the learning of students in secondary roles in scenario training. The objective of this study is to explore learning for students who act in secondary roles during scenario training in vocational educational settings. 
 Method: The studied case entails scenario training for police students in a Swedish police education programme. A case study design, which included both participant observation and a questionnaire, was used. The analytic lens applied was inspired by practice theory and focused on how structural and situational arrangements of the training activity affect learning. 
 Results: Our findings show that students who act in secondary roles learn from their scenario training experiences, but this learning often is overlooked in the design of training activities. Due to the structural arrangements of training activities, learning emerged as students in secondary roles were tasked to support the primary participants in relation to their learning objectives. In addition, it emerged in how students in secondary roles used previous scenario training experiences in relation to the current scenario and its learning objectives. Examples of learning from situational arrangements emerged as students in secondary roles formulated and provided feedback to primary participants and through informal discussions and reflection processes. Learning also emerged as students in secondary roles embodied the “other” during scenario training, something that provided the students with new perspectives on police encounters. 
 Conclusions: We theorize and extract three dimensions for how learning emerges in this case for secondary participants. It emerges through embodying the “other”, in students’ sensory experiences, and through reconstruction of knowledge through repetition. However, our findings also show that learning for students in secondary roles can be improved through mindful set-up and design. Based on the findings, our article provides a discussion and suggestions on how scenario training can be planned and set-up to develop professional knowledge for students in secondary roles.

On the relationship between computer simulation training and the development of practical knowing in police education

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on the practical knowing that is central in police education. Drawing on perspectives about tacit knowledge and embodied learning (e.g. Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1997; Polanyi, 1966; Argyris and Schön, 1974) as well as empirical examples, this paper discusses the design of and what can be expected from computer simulation training for the development of police students’ professional knowing.Design/methodology/approachThe discussion is based on lessons learned from working with two different computer simulation training situations designed to prepare the students for an upcoming practical training by facilitating the understanding of complex situations as they should be handled in the physical training situation.FindingsThe experiences from the training sessions showed that the different characteristics of the simulations mediate how the training session was performed, e.g., unplanned trial and error vs focused and attentive, but also group discussions about how to act and appropriate actions in relation to the situation to be solved in the simulation.Originality/valueBased on the lessons learned from working with the two different computer simulations, it is posited that the use of computer simulations for practical scenario training is a complex endeavor that needs, in various degrees, to be supported by pedagogical steering. The design of computer simulation training (both the simulation and how the training is designed and performed) need to consider the specific aspects that surround tacit knowledge and embodied learning in the “real sense” (anchored to the practical training) to be of relevance for police students development of professional knowing.

Physical Fitness and Psychological Hardiness as Predictors of Parasympathetic Control in Response to Stress: a Norwegian Police Simulator Training Study

The individual biopsychological response to a specific stressor is the result of a complex interplay between many different factors including physiology, behavior, and personality. The goal of the present study was to explore the potential link between physical fitness, hardiness (Kobasa 1979), and the individual autonomic stress arousal experienced during a stressful police training situation (active shooter). Eighty-four police students participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either a high-stress or a low-stress testing condition. Hardiness was measured with the Dispositional Resilience Scale (Hystad et al. 2010). Physical fitness was assessed with $$ \dot{\mathrm{V}}{\mathrm{O}}_{2\max } $$ . Parasympathetic control was measured using heart rate variability (HRV), i.e., the root mean square successive difference (RMSSD). Regression analysis showed that psychological hardiness had a negative main effect on change in parasympathetic activity from baseline to the testing phase (B = − 1.43, t = − 2.81, p = 0.007). Larger withdrawal of parasympathetic activation for high-hardy individuals in this phase of the study can be interpreted as an adaptive adjustment to the task set in front of them. A second regression analysis showed that both psychological hardiness (B = − 1.47, t = 3.68, p < 0.001) and physical fitness (B = 0.89, t = 2.85, p = 0.006) had significant main effects on change of parasympathetic activity entering the recovery phase of the study. Both regression coefficients were positive, with higher scores on hardiness and physical fitness predicting greater parasympathetic activation at stress offset. Overall, the results suggest that psychological hardiness and physical fitness may be important factors in how operational stress affects the individual in a police setting. Those high in hardiness and good physical form seem to be better able to recuperate and reset after a stressful incident, something that can be vital in an operational context. These results will be discussed in relation to the existing literature in the field.

ENGLISH COMMUNICATION INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL TO ENHANCE LISTENING-SPEAKING ABILITIES OF POLICE STUDENTS AT POLICE PROVINCIAL TRAINING CENTER REGION 7.

24Feb 2019 ENGLISH COMMUNICATION INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL TO ENHANCE LISTENING-SPEAKING ABILITIES OF POLICE STUDENTS AT POLICE PROVINCIAL TRAINING CENTER REGION 7. Kritaya Sukprasert , Sa-ngiam Torut , Bamrung Torut and Pranee Ninlakorn. Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, Silpakorn University, Thailand. Thesis advisors, Faculty of Education, Silpakorn University, Thailand.

Measuring perspective taking among police recruits

Purpose Perspective taking (PT), as part of the empathy concept, is an important ability in the police profession. It is important to understand how PT can be measured, but also whether it changes over time. The purpose of this paper is to compare the outcomes of three different measures of PT, and to see whether police students’ PT changes at different stages of their education. Design/methodology/approach Three measures, one self-reported and two objective tests, were administered to Swedish National Police recruits at three distinct stages of their police training. The outcomes of the measures were psychometrically analyzed, after which associations between measures and between-group differences were assessed. Findings The result showed that the measures provided results that were in line with what had been reported in earlier studies. There were no significant correlations between the total scores of the three measures, yet students who graded their abilities higher on the subjective instrument did perform better on one of the objective tests. The findings also showed that recruits in later parts of their training self-reported significantly lower PT values than recruits at the beginning of their training. Originality/value This study adds knowledge on the ability of different types of instruments to measure PT and how this construct may develop over time among police recruits.