Contemporary Policing: Proposal for Change in Recruitment and Training Process

Has This Been Successfully Tried In Another Country, For a Different Group Of People, In a Different Institution? What Is The Evidence That It Will Improve Anything?

Identification Of The Potential Criticisms And Risks That Exist For This Proposal For Change e.g. What Are The Resource Implications, The Practical Obstacles, What Evidence Is There Of Public Or Expert Support For This Change?

In the following assignment it is discussed about the contemporary policing and their major issues in the area of recruitment and the representativeness of the metropolitan. The two major issues that has been identified in the recruitment procedure of the police are the lack of diversity and the second issues is training process of officer. These two issues are the major problem in contemporary policing (Hönke and Müller 2016). The aim of the assignment is to showcase a proposal of change catering the area of issues and providing a better way of service for Londoners. The proposal reflects on the recruitment based on the population of UK and not thinking about the white and black people and secondly the recruitment must be based on the candidates who are a graduate from any police related course and lastly the training period for the police should be kept longer so that they can be trained from all aspects. The essay will further highlight on the major advantage and risk factors for the proposal which is designed for the police force of UK (Davis and Bailey 2018). Hence to evaluate these strategies the time space would be three months time period so that the functioning of the implementation can take place in a smooth manner.  

Diversity is one of the major areas that must be taken care of in the modern society. The presence of a proper diversity is said to reflect a great social and community bonding, whereas its absence is naturally a significant failure to the social and demographic equality of a nation. The study of ethnicity and migration is naturally one of the most important evolving field in the modern days. The ethnicity and diversity in UK and especially in the metropolitan police recruitment of United Kingdom is a matter of concern for this particular fact (met.police.uk 2020). Different studies have praised the activities and tasks of the Metropolitan Police force of United Kingdom, however the absence of a proper level of diversity has always been criticized by these same articles. Often the leader in UK suggest that the police force is 100 years away from the reflection of the multiculturalism of the country, There is ample source and evidences that clearly suggest the present level of discrimination that is carried out in the force to discriminate people based on their religion, ethnicity, colour, community as well as sexual orientation (theguardian.com 2020). The question can however be raised in a different manner as it is this selected community involving people from different areas who generally reject Metropolitan Police as their career opportunities. This clearly reflects to the experiences that were faced by the communities mentioned above. These past experiences as well as some present experiences is totally marked by suspicion, incivility as well as distrust with the management(theguardian.com 2020). The problem lies with the recruitment process itself where these people are provided a non-friendly and unwelcome environment. It has been seen that the people who are recruited after all these initial issues, seem to be much less preferred for promotional ranks in the future, with people with much less skills and qualification gets the preference(theguardian.com 2020). The issues in diversity is thus definitely one of the major issues that have a significant negative impact on the social and cultural background of the Metropolitan Police.

Proposal for Change

The other major issue that has been a problem for the metropolitan police for quite a long time is the presence of a short and limited training policy for the employees of the police force. There was a thinking just a few years ago that the police work was based largely on the matter of common sense. The Existence of the training in police forces across the world has been seen to be largely superficial in nature as the training lacks the minimum edge and skills that are required to be present within a single police in the force especially to fight against any kind of crimes in the modern day external environment(theguardian.com 2020). The Metropolitan Police Force Training is based on “Total Policing”. Though there have been a large number of training s present in the modern day, each of the trainings have a much shorter duration which makes them vulnerable to the modern day threats. The presence of some theoretical training in a Police Force also does not make complete sense as the practical application of these theories is hardly looked after. These issues altogether has crumbled the image of the Metropolitan Police Force.

The following changes must be made in the recruitment policy of the police force because the issues faced by the black people, ethnic minorities, females and from the LGBT community (Schuck and Rabe 2016). It is often observed that the people who are smart and is a pass out from a reputed college is taking seriously in the recruitment process but this should be stopped. Maintain the culture of the working space is very vital for the police as they showcase their morality and show that there is inclusion and create fair work opportunity for the talented and wise people of UK. From the human resource department it can be proposed that the screening of the candidate must not only be restricted upon the white people of UK but also the black must be taken into account. The term of mixed gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation must be removed from their mind and the recruiter must cater to problem solving technique and hire people who are talented (Silvestri 2019). The research on the factors of diversity is unanimous and later this can create a great impact from the people living in the same society. The organisation without clear understanding of culture and diversity ends up in conflict and production.

The human resource department must cater towards the people who readily accept the law of the community and ensure that there is safety for the citizen and also towards the property (Belur, Agnew and Tompson 2018). The police department must prefer the candidates who are a graduate in any specialised course of police and have completed their officer certification. It is more preferred that they are specialised as police officer from the police academy. The prospective police must have high school diploma and must have attain the age of 21. The basic qualification required for UK is dame for all gender of people who aspires to be a police officer. The candidate must have a valid driver’s license and must have no prior convictions.

The Recruiters Must Obtain The Following Work Experience Which Comes Under The Supervision Of Training Officers

 CPR and first-aid

 Using firearms

 Risk assessment

 Role playing

 Self-defense techniques

 Apprehension techniques

 Responding to emergencies

Controlling traffic

The basic training for the police must include 600 hours of classroom and lab experience as per by the Mayor and Commissioner of UK. The program must be formulated must be open to law which enforce the officer approved by the commissioner for enrolment. This must take place twice a year as it is comprised of intensive instruction in standard police tactics, education, technical skills, physical education, firearm, legal, traffic crash investigation and lastly the training of criminal justice system (Cao, Huang and Sun 2016). The training program must be applied on the newly recruited and also with the police who already work in the organisation. This will enhance them in maintaining the structure and policies of the commissioner and on the other hand will also meet the statutory training requirement. This will enable the police force to be eligible for state certification as law enforcement officer.  

Recruitment should reflect the population of the UK (diversity)

Recruitment of graduates from police related courses.

Training process should be longer looking at the nature of their job.

There have been some significant evidences that clearly supports the present issues that are being discussed in the following area. There have been numerous reports and journal articles related to the following area that has highlighted these issues. The very first being the articles published by “The Guardian” related to the issue of Diversity. The absence of proper diversity in the organization has been a major problem as serving officers as well as simple police employees are of the belief about the alienation theory that exits within the workforce of the Police force and which is evident during the ongoing recruitment process of the Police Force. The new recruits who survive these alienated culture are forced to different forms of discrimination in the workplace where the management has chalked out certain subtle ways to exclude the blacks, LGBT class of people as well as a number of people belonging to different communities. Though there have been some development in the present for promoting these officers, the time taken to promote the Asians, blacks and other minorities in the workforce can be easily recognized to be a way of creating a serious discrimination. On the other hand, the training courses like Appearance and Parades, Written Work as well as other theoretical training courses are being given a much larger time than actually needed. It is important for the management to provide much larger time to the practical implementation of these courses.

The rising issues with diversity has made the term quite important in the modern days. The management of the organization has been accused of biased behaviour in the past and thus the management needs to take a strict action that can be beneficial for all the communities and can easily promote the multiculturalism in the United Kingdom (Dodd 2020). Apart from this it is important for the management of the metropolitan police to address to the improvement of the training process and make it a longer one to ensure that the police force is ready to handle any kind of situation.

The changes in the organization like Metropolitan Police is one of the major requirements. As diversity and ethnicity is important to promote equality and multiculturalism. The promotion of equality and multiculturalism can help in the success of the organization in a proper and developed manner. Some of the major benefits and limitations of the changes have been provided below;

Benefits

Changes in the social and demographical structure

Promotion of multiculturalism

Promotion of better job opportunities

Limitations

Have to increase the budget

Have to change the current policies and procedures that may involve legal challenges

The implementation of introducing this above training course will approximately require six months time period and will be effective as soon as it is formulated. It has to be noted that the theoretical training will require more of time as compared to the physical training because the assigned officer is given particular date and time to reach the organisation and take classes for the police officer.  With reference to the training of self-defence and role play it will take 15 days time period for each of the officers in different levels to cater the training.

From the following issues of that is recognised in the police department the following proposal is structured and hence it is noticed that there is biasness between the white and the black people of United Kingdom.  Hence it can be noticed that the implementation of the training session and refining the recruitment policy will make it more effective for the people to work with dedication and sincerely. It is the concern of the general people that it hold the partnership of work which can be achieved from cooperative measures.

Reference

Babu, D., 2020. I Served In The Met. The Lack Of Progress On Diversity Is Disgusting | Dal Babu. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/21/served-met-diverse-force-discrimination-police-london> [Accessed 19 March 2020].

Belur, J., Agnew-Pauley, W. and Tompson, L., 2018. Designing a graduate entry route for police recruits: lessons from a rapid evidence assessment of other professions. Police Practice and Research, pp.1-18.

Cao, L., Huang, L. and Sun, I., 2016. Development and reform of police training and education in Taiwan. Police Practice and research, 17(6), pp.531-542.

Davis, C. and Bailey, D., 2018. Police leadership: The challenges for developing contemporary practice. International Journal of Emergency Services.

Dodd, V., 2020. Police Chiefs Admit Failures On Diversity 21 Years After Pledge. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/27/police-chiefs-admit-failures-on-diversity-21-years-after-pledge> [Accessed 19 March 2020].

Hönke, J. and Müller, M.M., 2016. The global making of policing. In The Global Making of Policing (pp. 21-39). Routledge.

Police, M., 2020. [online] Met.police.uk. Available at: <https://www.met.police.uk/msctraining/course_information.htm> [Accessed 19 March 2020].

Schuck, A.M. and Rabe-Hemp, C., 2016. Citizen complaints and gender diversity in police organisations. Policing and Society, 26(8), pp.859-874.

Silvestri, M., 2019. In Search of Diversity: An Embodied Account of Police Leadership. In Police Leadership (pp. 99-120). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Taylor & Francis. 2020. Ethnic Diversity In The UK: New Opportunities And Changing Constraints. [online] Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1539229> [Accessed 19 March 2020].