Recently I spoke with a student about his law enforcement employment prospects and we were looking for police agencies actively recruiting by using the internet. To my surprise, I found several private security entities using the same website as a recruitment tool like their policing counterparts. Then I started wondering, "Why do security and law enforcement employers seek candidates blindly?" In other words, how did you find your job as a cop? Did you see that newspaper ad about police agency XZY hiring or hear about it from a friend?
All you have to do is check out your local want ads in the Sunday newspaper and there you will find which agencies are hiring. That's how I found mine; word of mouth and the media. In short, I was found by my department as a competitive candidate... by luck. Speaking with law enforcement recruiters, I have heard repeatedly that their number one complaint is good help is hard to find. I am sure that problem is evident in every industry, but police work is different in that we arm people and give them the power to commit murder, legally, when justified. Therefore, you better have the best pool of applicants that you can find.
So, is there a better way to find that good officer candidate? Are some better prepared or qualified for protective service occupations that are not necessarily working in the field yet? The long and the short of it is YES, some are.
Career & Technical Education
Oversimplified, the goal of Career and Technical Education (CTE) in public schools is to teach high school students real and employable skills that are highly desirable by employers. In order for our nation's economy to continue growing and for our workforce to complete globally, the skills taught in CTE need to be up-to-date, cutting edge, and in many cases ahead of the curve.
How long has C & T Education been in existence? Around 1926 public education in this country recognized the importance of training young men and women to lead socially productive lives through skill development. You had these courses of study available when you were in school and you either took them or had friends in these programs. Courses were most likely automotive, carpentry, drafting, landscaping and other hands-on programs. You may also have known them then as vocational-technical (vo-tech) classes. Unfortunately, students who participated in vo-tech programs were often viewed by their peers, parents, and other misinformed educators as being the "non-college type". This erroneous label couldn't be any further than the truth and is proven wrong in our classrooms every day.
Younger & Smarter
CTE students today pursue advance certifications that are highly technical given the digital environment that we live, work and play in. For instance, our teachers are preparing students to immediately enter and succeed in the workforce, college or a combination thereof. As seniors the students not only complete high school, but graduate as industry certified auto mechanics, carpenters, computer technicians, heating and cooling, culinary, machining, business development, mechanical engineers, EMT, and in my particular case, state certified security officers and emergency dispatchers as part of our schools Public Safety Academy.
As secondary education state licensed teachers, police academy and security academy state certified instructors, my partner and I can assure you that students in our criminal justice program receive knowledge, skills and abilities that are broadly based and in-depth. Students also benefit from the mistakes that we have made and have been lucky to survive over our collective 40 years of street policing. Those students entering our criminal justice program do so at their junior year of high school, and the academics for their first year is reflective of the State of Ohio basic police curriculum, where students are taught everything from how to spit shine their uniform shoes to making physical arrests and everything in-between.
During their senior year students will enter a state certified security academy and receive an advanced national certification in Police/ Fire/ EMS Emergency Dispatching (APCO). At the conclusion of both years, the successful graduate will have completed over 1100 hours of training and, most important to the recruiter, the students have been evaluated daily by their instructors for nearly two years. Such evaluation will have included continuous random drug screening, an entrance background check, references and accumulation of seven semester hours of college credit. In many cases, graduating students return and enter adult education programs, one of them being a state certified police academy to become police officers. This easily saves hiring agencies about $10,000 per cadet, because the department does not pay for salary, equipment or the cost of the academy.
Tomorrow & Tougher
The unforgettable and horrific events of September 11th, 2001 proved we live in a different world; I would argue a more dangerous one than at any time in civilized history. As terrorist organizations pursue a younger generation for indoctrinization and training, why shouldn't we search out the appropriate young of our nation and mold them defensibly into what we need them to be? They may still be teenagers, and from time to time act like it, but they are capable of assessing the complexities of those dynamic issues facing public safety today and in the future. Believe me, every day that I stand in front of them teaching I have the privilege of watching young minds at work while they evaluate chronic policing problems from a new and often digitally supported perspective. I am reminded then that I am looking into the faces of future police chiefs, officers, detectives, Secret Service and FBI Agents, to name a few. Knowing what I know now, and what I am trying to get you to understand, is that trying to recruit blindly is, in my opinion, a waste of time and has proven counter productive, especially when there are over 6,000 public high schools nationally that offer CTE and their highly qualified candidates number in the thousands. They may not be of age now (depending on your state and position available they could be), but in a few short years they will be ripe for the picking.
