It is not broken down like that here. The Police Training Commission governs most of the academies. Most of the Police Officers go to one of the active county academies. They have the option of how long to hold the course as long as all of the criteria is met*. Most County Investigators go through the Division of Criminal Justice Academy. All of the academies are pretty much interchangeable when it comes to switching jobs. The one major exception is the State Police. You can not join the State Police unless you go through their academy and they do not answer to the Police Training Commission.
As for college, most departments seem to be going in the direction of requiring at least two years. Or college with some combination of active duty military time. But not all. The lower paying departments such as college police, small towns and many county Sheriff’s departments tend to have fewer restrictions.
*My academy was shorter than most because I attended a residential course. We had to stay overnight Monday-Friday. I was actually taught by Troopers at the State Police Academy. In a program that no longer exists, they would hold municipal classes using PTC standards whenever a Trooper class was not planned.
It depends on the agency. There is a DoD police agency that does normal cop stuff on bases that don’t have a large active MP force. Also the Capital Hill Police, The Secret Service Uniform Division and probably a few others I am forgetting.
In Wisconsin everything is mandated from the top, including what needs to be covered during the 40 hours of in-service every year.
The last thing to fall was firearm certification. They used allow individual departments set their own course of fire. They still can but officers also have to annually pass the state mandated course. And it’s a doozy! And retirees who want their certification card so they can continue to carry have to pass the same course every year that active officers have to.
Tell you the truth sometimes I wish I’d of done that. I have a lot more relatives that are/were fire fighters than I have relatives who are/were cops.
Around here the fire fighters work 24 hours on, 3 days off. I know quite a few part-time cops who are full time fire fighters. With a couple of shift switches they get 9 days off without burning a single vacation day!
There are some places that have merged all the duties into one. I’m not sure if that would be a good or bad position, but I do find it interesting.
Nobody has recommended this, but in my experience, recent College graduates don’t fare as well in LEO as they could. Given that he is pursuing a degree, I might recommend looking at Military Police. This is an excellent way to gain some real life perspective and experience and many departments look favorably on MP Officers.
There are a lot fewer fire department jobs. Most places just don’t need full time fire departments and go with volunteers or mostly volunteers.
All of the military is downsizing. The Coast Guard has always been small. They still are. There is also the technicality of them never promising which coast you will be guarding. It could be the Jersey Shore or it could be the Persian Gulf or it could be manning a customs station in Kabul. We had the puddle pirates handling customs in Baghdad. Of course the law enforcement aspect is only one part of a Coasties job. There is also cleaning the heads and scrapping paint. It’s a military job not a police job.
In my experience that is not the case. Some departments like vets. Some don’t. If it is a civil service department you get extra points for being a vet. But no extra consideration for being an MP. And many former military personnel do not look favorably towards MPs. Then of course I make a hell of a lot more than someone in the Army. Also police work is only part of the MP mission. If you are stationed on a post that is covered by DoD police you might not get much experience at all. Most MP units rotate through various cycles. They do their police job for part of the year. Then the rest of the year they train on their wartime missions which include EPW operations, route security and rear area security. Then there is that whole getting sent to third world shitholes to get shot at thing.
Ducati Jr. is taking CJ right now. His goal is to become an FBI agent like his grandfather. It’s a better fit for his personality than street cop.
A federal position is generally going to pay better and have better benefits and pension.
As mentioned above, there are many ways to accomplish this.
Also, how “outside” does he want to be? Game wardens, wildlife troopers, and DNR cops are real cops who do real police work, just in the woods. And they have investigators and forensic departments for when he’s tired of tramping through the mud!
This is not official by any means but I always heard that the FBI looks for other things. I had heard that they look mostly for those with accounting, computer science and law degrees. Of course there are other federal agencies to apply for. Most require a 4 year degree.
What Loach said re the FBI, I believe economics is another big one for them.
And cmosdes don’t let those who say your son is too passive put him or you off, a certain level of aggression is certainly needed but to a large extent that can be learned/brought out by the training he’ll receive, I personally would say its more confidence in himself thats necessary rather than anything else and again that’ll be brought out in the training if he should decide to go ahead.
And policing is very much a vocation, for some people being out and about in all weathers and dealing with ‘interesting’ situations and people is attractive and sitting behind a desk all day for the next 30+ years is not something they want to do. You either get it or you don’t.
FWIW, my college roommate was offered an FBI position; his degree was in CJ and his only work experience was ~5 years as a cop - though he was promoted pretty quickly at the latter.
How easy is it nowadays to go in with a bachelor’s degree in something other than Criminal Justice? E.g. if you have a BS in Yak Engineering with a minor in Medieval Fashion History, will they typically take you as you are or would you need to go back to school to get a Certificate in Criminal Justice or something?
Also, I thought that “Police Academy” in the US was pretty much something you went to after you were hired and was basically a kind of employer or employer-sponsored training program, sort of like A-school in the Navy and whatnot. Is Police Academy something you can do on your own time and dime? Can you do it as part of a Criminal Justice degree program?
Some Federal agencies will take you in with any four year degree. But the FBI required Law or accounting. This has changed slightly: https://www.fbijobs.gov/111.asp
Back when my friend and I were young, still in high school, and heavily into martial arts, we would sit in the evenings with a neighbor who had been a Sheriff’s Deputy. The neighbor would regale us with stories about incidents and encounters around San Diego county. One evening he announced, “I’m not gonna tell you stories any more 'cause I don’t really think you two should be cops. What you’re looking to do is go out and kick ass while carrying a badge, and law enforcement isn’t about justifying your martial arts on bad guys.”*
And my neighbor later talked to me separately and said, “If you really want to do law enforcement and you can ignore the violent hype, you’re smart enough to be in the FBI – investigating crimes rather than chasing perps. Think about it. But remember they require a 4-year degree, not just an Associate’s.” So I thought about it and decided to go to college instead of the Police Academy – and changed majors along the way, as well.:dubious:
If your son is really interested in detective work (investigations) more than the kick-ass-with-a-badge-to-make-it-right then he’s on the right track and, even if he still wants to work at a municipal or local level, he’d be wise to study something like accounting or computers or business or finance or chemistry or… things related to the kinds of evidence he’ll be poring over in his investigations. In fact he might even make CJ his minor and one of those things his major, rather than the other way around. Cyber crime is big and growing; Accounting fraud has been around since bookkeeping started – but now it’s in databases instead of paper books. Expertise in certain languages can help in gathering evidence. And so on and so on.
When I was (briefly) a managing editor for some CJ-related academic journals, I talked with a senior editor who was a professor in attendance at a major conference. “Kids are flooding my courses now-a-days,” she complained, “They all want to be CSI investigators in four years – Ha! They don’t realize those characters would each have to have three PhD’s each – in biology, chemistry, and engineering or medicine – in order to qualify for those forensic investigative teams. And then it’s drudgery staring at thread samples and metal shavings for weeks on end. Most of my students in September drop out by Halloween. It’s not the glamorous and speedy shit those shows are showing.”
I’m not saying he won’t do well or even enjoy some form of law enforcement work. But he needs to be sure he’s not approaching it with stars in his eyes.
–G!
*And my friend said “Okay” and then changed karate instructors and started training with a guy who was a former Highway Patrol Officer who had been de-hired for having too many *excessive force *complaints filed against him. My friend got work as a security guard, then got de-hired for beating up a guy who was on a construction site late at night, taking pictures of his future home. Then my friend’s path to a LEO career stopped.