Improving Local Law Enforcement: Lessons from Education

Let me say from the outset that I am not against the police. My late brother served on a city police force most of his working life, as have his son and grandson.  My concern is simply to ensure that our law enforcement services in communities across the country are able to do what the public expects of them and that the public understand how quality is defined and ensured.

            That said, the recent killing of George Floyd, the spate of killings that preceded it, and new killings since then have made it clear that there is a problem to be solved.  Let’s not demonize all police officers because of the actions of a few.  Instead, let’s make sure that US. communities, big and small, across the nation can be confident that their local law enforcement agencies—and the professionals who work in them—develop and refine the professional skills and organizational practices that are needed in a rapidly changing social and technological environment.  

            There are many very specific issues of public policy, organizational policy, and individual professionalism that need to be articulated to ensure that law enforcement agencies and individual police officers meet the professional standards for the field.  However, I’d like to address some organizational approaches that might facilitate how the law enforcement community establishes  standards for the field.  

I spent most of my career in education. My sense is that the way school districts and colleges/universities have organized to develop standards of professional practice in education offer some examples of how law enforcement agencies and governments might organize professional standards in that field.  Here are some thoughts on how models that education institutions have created could be applied to strengthen public confidence in local law enforcement.

Law Enforcement Agency Accreditation

Around the United States, colleges and universities have created regional associations through which they ensure quality at the institutional level.  Pennsylvania, for instance, is a member of the Middlestates Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), created in 1919 and recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation as the body that accredits more than 525 higher education institutions in five U.S. States, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.  It describes itself as:

a voluntary, non-governmental, membership association that defines, maintains, and promotes educational excellence across institutions with diverse missions, student populations, and resources. It examines each institution as a whole, rather than specific programs within institutions.

As a membership organization, MSCHE brings institutions together to set standards and then to review each other to ensure that all members are meeting those standards.  Standards are in the following areas:  

Design and Delivery of the Student Learning Experience
Support of the Student Experience

Educational Effectiveness Assessment
Planning, Resources, and Institutional Improvement

Governance, Leadership, and Administration

Each member institution agrees on a periodic peer evaluation of the institution’s achievements in each of these areas.  This includes data collected annually and a peer review every five years.  There are counterpart accrediting commissions in other parts of the U.S., all of which are recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

This model could be adapted by law enforcement agencies across the country, allowing for coordination of local agencies at the state level and, through regional accrediting commissions, at regional and national levels.  The result would be a new professional community that can work to ensure that law enforcement agencies address both local needs and national policy concerns.    

State Licensure/Credentialing

Pennsylvania has 500 individual school districts that range in size from 200 students to 140,000 students.  All teachers in these districts must be certified by the State Department of Education before they can be hired to teach in local schools.  Similar certification requirements can be found in other states.  The statewide professional certification model could be easily applied to law enforcement as an enhancement of current training and certification practices for police officers.  It would help guarantee that all officers have received training in how to operate in communities that are diverse not only racially, but religiously, culturally, and by how individuals earn a living.  It also would provide a standard for evaluating professional performance of law enforcement officers and the agencies in which they work.

Continuing Professional Education

Continuing professional development should be a requirement for all law enforcement professionals.  Standards for professional development could evolve through the work of the regional accrediting commissions, with input from state credentialing agencies.  Professional development can take many forms—conferences, webinars, credit and noncredit courses, etc.  All forms could contribute to micro-credentials that could then be aggregated into college credits, leading to senior officers having a degree or equivalent professional certification.  Achievement of a micro-credential could be a threshold for special assignments and related salary increases and future promotions.

Bringing State associations together to review state standards and agree on regional standards would be an important step toward raising the professional stature of policing in the U.S. Turning these standards into a licensing/certification system for officers is a natural product of the national conversation that would result.