American policing is plagued by weaknesses in the selection of police officers and in academy training.
Many of these problems are solved by apprenticeships. Unlike the shorter police academies, future officers serve as apprentices or cadets for a two-to-three-year program involving comprehensive learning through years of field experience and classroom instruction. Departments vet incoming cadets with medical exams, fitness tests, psychological testing, polygraphs, and background investigations.
Apprenticeship programs also recruit from a more diverse pool of candidates than traditional recruiting.
In Baltimore County, for example, 36 percent of police apprentices are non-white and 24 percent are women. Moreover, 75 percent of apprentices are retained by the department; the average Baltimore County police apprentice serves the department for 17 years.
Read complete Newsweek opinion article by Ben Klosky and Robert I. Lerman at Newsweek.
Ben Klosky is a former police apprentice in Fairfax County, VA. Robert I. Lerman is Emeritus Professor of Economics at American University and Board Chair of Apprenticeships for America.
