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Law enforcement officers enter police service usually sometime after their 21st birthday. They often remain in police service until they turn 65. To maintain their professional skills and re‐certify their licenses as law enforcement officers, they must complete in‐service training hours. The purpose of this study is to estimate the current number of law enforcement officers over 40 years old and to explore possible andragogical solutions to existing in‐service training methodologies.

The Police Officer Standard and Training (POST) organizations were contacted in all 50 States in a telephone survey.

Police training requirements vary widely between States. There are a large number of older law enforcement officers that require in‐service training. This population might be better served using andragogical training techniques.

Although this was a nationwide study, there were certain limitations that must be considered. Only State, county, and municipal law enforcement officers were included in this study. No federal law enforcement officers or agencies were included in this study.

The findings show the extent and amount of in‐service training that law enforcement agencies are required to provide their employees and will be of interest to those in that field.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a coordinated effort to improve the law enforcement response to non-fatal strangulation in the context of domestic violence.

The authors compare law enforcement identification and documentation of strangulation in domestic violence cases before and after the implementation of a strangulation-specific training program in one Central Florida County.

The results indicate preliminary support for the effectiveness of training law enforcement, suggesting that the response to strangulation can be improved with comprehensive law enforcement training.

An improved response by law enforcement may have the potential to increase offender accountability of non-fatal strangulation – a potentially deadly assault.

The study is the first to evaluate strangulation-specific training efforts of law enforcement. Results point to opportunities that can be taken to improve law enforcement’s response to non-fatal strangulation in domestic violence.

This qualitative study seeks to gather rich, narrative data from police officers on the social environment of law enforcement classrooms and the classroom experiences valued most by law enforcement officers.

The study used interview data from a focus group, as well as individual interviews.

Data revealed one predominant theme, students' preference for adult education practices, and four distinct subthemes: engagement, practicality, affiliation, and efficiency. That is, officers valued courses that were interesting and engaging, were applicable to their everyday duties and responsibilities, provided opportunities for social interaction, and were presented efficiently. These subthemes or classroom preferences support the primary study finding that the students preferred adult education practices in their classrooms. The interviews revealed, however, that actual law enforcement classrooms do not always accommodate these preferences or foster the preferred classroom environment.

Such findings, which should be supplemented with additional qualitative studies as well as quantitative surveys, may be informative for classroom design and instructional planning in the law enforcement setting.

There is a dearth of research on officers' opinions about adult education in the law enforcement arena.

The purpose of this research is to describe the teaching style of the faculty of a Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) organization in a Midwestern state and the degree and method of application of adult learning principles by the POST faculty. The move of law enforcement to community‐oriented policing (COP) requires that police officers develop communication and problem‐solving skills. The application of adult learning principles in law enforcement education can help prepare officers for their role in COP.

In this mixed method/descriptive study, 85 instructors completed the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS) and 21 instructors participated in in‐depth interviews.

Major findings in the study related to POST instructors' strong preference for a teacher‐centered style of teaching as measured by PALS and a disconnect between what instructors do in the classroom and what they feel is effective instruction.

Offers suggestions related to the nature of the field and for instructor development. Recommendations were made related to professional development and the application of adult learning principles to law enforcement education and training.

This research fills a void in the field by beginning to give a formal description of teaching style in law enforcement education and training. It also details the value of applying adult learning theory in law enforcement instruction and the implications for community‐oriented policing.

Drawing on over two decades of studying and researching police recruitment, selection, and training, a correlation of the three prongs to professional policing in a democratic society is established.

The author overviews the current approaches to professional policing through an analysis of a statement made by a legendary chief of police August Vollmer, who is credited with the inception of the era of “professional policing.”

The transition from a young adult and inexperienced adult into a life-and-death decision maker needs to take into consideration a host of characteristics identified by Vollmer. These characteristics cannot be found nor honed within the current recruitment, selection, and training practices of American police departments.

This chapter provides an analysis of the required skills and characteristics necessary to hone and develop a professional police officer in a democratic society.

This study examined the consequences of training on organizations. With data collected from 464 U.S. law enforcement agencies, training effects were explored in terms of crime control performance and sworn officers' resignation in regression analysis. According to the findings, training did not significantly improve crime control performance and police officers tended to stay in current organizations when they received a longer training. This study also found that law enforcement agencies in large cities tended to require longer training hours for their police officers.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain law enforcement cadet general knowledge of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and practical knowledge in how to apply various aspects of their profession to persons with ASD.

In total, 341 law enforcement cadet surveys administered across ten individual law enforcement cadet classes were analyzed via two individual ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models. These regression models were designed to predict changes in cadet scores on their (1) general knowledge of autism scale (i.e., general knowledge regarding autism spectrum disorder itself) and (2) interactional law enforcement knowledge of autism scale (i.e., how to apply various aspects of their job to persons with ASD).

Findings show that cadets who had a stronger confidence in their ability to interact with persons who have ASD actually knew less than their counterparts with lower reported overall confidence. However, one's confidence in their ability to identify persons with ASD was associated with having better overall general knowledge of ASD itself. Similarly, the greater one's overall confidence in interacting with persons with ASD was associated with lower interactional knowledge. In each model, general autism knowledge and interactional knowledge were positively associated.

The results of this study have implications for cadet and officer training on ASD as each need to be trained in both general knowledge of autism and interactional autism knowledge skills related to the job functions of being a LEO. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The literature is sparse on law enforcement knowledge of and interaction with persons who have ASD. As such, this study has the potential to make a strong impact on the literature regarding law enforcement and their knowledge and/or interactions with persons who have ASD.

This paper seeks to analyze how institutional arrangements and discourses shape law enforcement professionalization efforts, to identify opportunities and potential problems associated with professionalization, and to propose research to address practitioner interests in education and training and public interests in accountability and service equity.

The paper explores discourses surrounding law enforcement professionalization efforts to identify implementation barriers and potential consequences. It reviews earlier literatures and analyzes occupational standards data, utilizing a communicative perspective to investigate professionalization problems that have often been approached from political or economic perspectives.

Although law enforcement is often urged to professionalize, educational standards for officers remain low. There is no clear nexus between college curriculum and law enforcement as a profession. This paper shows that competing discourses about professionalization in general and law enforcement in particular undermine efforts to establish professional status and increased standards for law enforcement.

Future research should include greater cross‐sectional data analysis. Investigation of law enforcement standards or professionalization should account for social discourses that contribute to norms and expectations.

Law enforcement agencies and criminal justice programs have opportunities to better coordinate practice and scholarship. Failure to attend to institutional relationships and the role of communication in shaping professional standards will hamper advances in either field.

The paper shows that professional norms shape law enforcement accountability to the public in critical and sometimes unintended ways.

Previous authors have not considered social discourse impacts on law enforcement standards and professionalization, nor their relationship to higher education. By introducing these variables, barriers and alternative approaches are revealed.

As computer and Internet‐related crimes continue to increase in prevalence and scope, some law enforcement agencies have developed specialized task forces to address the issue. Because of the relative newness of high‐tech deviance, however, it is not clear how to best proceed with the efficient, productive, and strategic allocation of resources, the provision of assistance to other departments, and the general development of policy. Research on a national level has provided some insight as to the requirements of law enforcement in dealing with computer crime, and has suggested deeper inquiry on a state and local level. Accordingly, survey research was conducted across Michigan to empirically assess the needs of state and local law enforcement resulting from the commission of these offenses. Some questions addressed the types of computer crimes most frequently encountered, the extent of training received, and the specific types of formal instruction desired by personnel to increase proficiency in investigations. It is hoped that the results will provide a basis of comparison to the national findings, and serve as an instructional tool for other agencies in other states and even other countries in their efforts to shape and direct fruitful computer crime control initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate variability in law enforcement officer (LEO) traffic fatality rates among states in order to identify policy-relevant areas of opportunity to reduce deaths.

Differences in state highway spending, regulatory policy, law enforcement training, LEO and general public traffic fatalities, and other state-level variables are explored through cross-sectional regression analysis and qualitative content analysis. Data were used from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime in the USA and LEOs Killed and Assaulted reports, and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System, among other sources.

There are a number of significant state-level variables and trends that contribute to differences in LEO traffic fatality rates. Maximum highway speed limits and general population traffic fatalities are found to be statistically significant predictors. Thematic factors relating to LEO exceptionalism, agency sovereignty, training, and external control loci, emerged through qualitative analysis.

Limitations included differences in definition, consistency, and reporting among data sources. Qualitative analysis of some variables were limited and future research should pursue more robust and repeated/longitudinal measures.

Policymakers have an opportunity to review significant factors contributing to higher/lower collision involvement rates and make changes to police practices to reduce collision involvement and improve safety for LEOs.

No prior study has offered a national, cross-case analysis of LEO traffic fatalities by state. This paper offers law enforcement policymakers empirical examples of successful LEO traffic safety policies.