Short Research Paper

Running Header: The Modern Millennial Police Recruit

The Modern Millennial Police Recruit

Sheena Thiebaud

SOC470- Research Methods

Averett University

January 15, 2016

Although recruitment of police officers greatly varies depending on economic, social and educational factors from one country to another, police departments often struggle to find the best recruits who can best meet the ever increasing technological and customer-service oriented expectations of a modern police officer (White, 2008). Security and public safety in the 21 century is highly changing and evolving. Due to technological advances, police officers are forced to do their jobs more professionally and change the way in which they relate and interact with members of the public whom they are supposed to protect. Today, almost all police departments exhibit higher levels of transparency than what was being observed a decade ago (Bradley, 2005). There is a great shift in terms of proper leadership, increased use of technology to improve safety and fight crime, policy, structure and culture.

The five articles selected for this literature review majorly discuss similar themes and issues. The authors talk about how police recruitment has changed with time for the last few decades. Notably, most of these changes have been brought about technological advances. According the authors, technology has numerous benefits to police agencies but unfortunately, the come laced with immense challenges too which have to be addressed.

More is expected from the modern police as compared to what the situation was some decades ago. The modern police are expected to juggle between solving neighborhood problems and also enforce the law (Wilson & Heinonen, 2012). While in the course of their duties, modern police officer are expected to make use of technology in order to recognize, analyze and solve crimes since majority of police departments have adopted an approach governed by community policing strategies (Woska, 2006). A community policing approach is one that encourages police officers to put in place measures aimed at preventing crimes from occurring as opposed to simply reacting when the crimes pop up. This implies that there is immense pressure on police officers to properly handle the complex diverse community problems that have to do with gangs, juvenile offenders, parole and people on probation (Woska, 2006). Therefore, there is a great need for those in charge of recruiting police officers to ensure that they get the best, intuitive and intelligent officers who have the capability to handle the above said complex issues. Some police departments actually have to carry the recruitment exercises two or three times in an effort to make sure that they get things right.

Nowadays, modern police recruits are usually technically savvy, service oriented and enthusiastic. They mostly tend to join the police force with high expectations and a strong desire to serve citizens well. Thus, law enforcement executives have realized that these modern recruits are eager to advance in their careers and expect higher starting remuneration packages (Bradley, 2005). The traditional police officer usually stuck to the same field or agency mostly for their entire careers (Fulton, 2000). This is in great contrast to what is observed in modern police officers who are likely to switch jobs or even employers after a number of years. Currently, members of the police force have higher expectations when it comes to training and mentorship opportunities. Newly recruited officers mostly prefer to have yearly evaluations in order to get opportunities for promotions and career advancement. They have a strong desire for more individualized and frequent feedback from their supervisors as well as corrective alternatives where necessary (White, 2008).

Technological advances have been a huge blessing for contemporary law enforcement agencies. For instance, the explosive growth of internet and related facilities over the last two decades has highly revolutionized the way police agencies and departments carry out their operations. New technologies such the Social Media and other related applications have made the work of police officers quite easy and challenging at the same time. For example, though information can be passed to police officers on time via social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and many other apps, gangs and terrorist organizations have also taken advantage of the same applications to advance their agendas and coordinate more efficiently like never before. This has necessitated the use of new digital means of combating such illegal use of social media by terrorists and gangs.

The work of police officers has been made more dangerous by development of specialized technological applications that particularly target law enforcement agencies. For instance, there is an application called Waze that helps users to track and tell the current location of police officers. The implication of this is that criminals can use it to avoid law enforcements agencies and safely continue perpetrating their criminal activities. Worse still, criminals can seek out where police officers are and harm them physically (Bradley, 2005).

While technological advancement especially the internet makes the work of ensuring public safety hard, criminal use of the internet mostly tends to leave a trail behind that the police can use to track down those involved. With the proper tracking knowledge and tools, police technicians are able to use the expansive technological resources under their disposal against suspected or potential cyber criminals (Wilson & Heinonen, 2012). Since there is a lot of information stored in the internet, when acquired legally, police can use such information as incriminating evidence against criminals in cases where applicable. By accessing broadly shared personal information over the internet, police officers are able to create a strong database to record behaviors which can later be used to identify criminal patterns.

As the state of technology evolves, modern police officers get presented with more complex challenges. Fortunately, law enforcement agencies mostly have the technical muscle needed to hack these challenges (White, 2008). However, it calls for a rapid expansion of knowledge within the police force in order to keep abreast with new changes and trends. This necessitates the recruitment of technologically innovative police officers who are tasked with providing the larger police force with the technological tools needed to serve the community properly.

References

Wilson, J. M., & Heinonen, J. A. (2012). Police Workforce Structures: Cohorts, the Economy,

and Organizational Performance. Police Quarterly, 15(3), 283-307

Woska, W. J. (2006). Police officer recruitment: A public-sector crisis. The Police Chief,

73(10), 52-59.

Fulton, R. (2000). Recruiting and hiring new officers. Law Enforcement Technology, 30, 130.

Bradley, P. L. (2005). 21st century issues related to police training and standards. The Police

Chief, 72(10), 32-39.

White, M. D. (2008). Identifying good cops early: Predicting recruit performance in the

academy. Police Quarterly, 11(1), 27-49.