Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2012
- Posts
- 8,355
At school, all the naughty kids or ones who just couldn't be bothered seemed to have the textbook response of 'I don't care about any of this anyway, I'm gonna join the police/army'.
Now, I never kept up with any of these people after school days, but if they've made it in to the police or army then it's pretty worrying.
Some sort of formal qualification to sieve said people out wouldn't be a bad thing. If you can't be bothered then a career in police should not be viewed as some sort of fall back option due to lack of barriers to entry. It should be the other way round.
E.g you want to be a Solicitor? You have to demonstrate 3 years of commitment completing a rigorous degree, followed by a 2 year training contract and even then you have no guarantees. You've spent 50k and put in countless hours of work and your life to prove you want that job. However you can be excelled in to sheer responsibility of a police officer (which is significant) simply by leaving school and meeting the very loose criteria and passing written tests? Yeah not everyone gets through but the fact is almost everyone can take a crack at the application. (Now I'm not saying you should have to do some 5 year course or spend 50k, it was an example of what it takes to get in to other important professions - and no the majority of solicitors don't earn big bucks either, I reckon police officers earn more than high street solicitors).
whilst i understand your point, surely it stands that for those who can't be bothered with education there does need to be something for them to do? better police officers than the dole? at least they get the opportunity to do something good for society.
funny police officers get a lot of stick, but any i've met are pretty decent folk, the institution as a whole might be questionable but it's constituent parts arent so bad.