I spoke to an long time NCPC leader who's been involve in these things since the mid 1990's. It turned out it's not that easy to hire Oakland residents who are also college graduates for police position.

Therefore I have nothing to say except "may the best person get the job."

What hiring preference is given for college credits/graduation vs Oakland residence?

I don't see the connection between college education and being an effective, fair minded street smart cop.

If anything, i would think that college educated cops are more likely to get bored or burn out and retire earlier than cops without college degrees. (no data here, just theory)

If we don't require or give any points to the person who is overall in charge of OPD, our Mayor, to be a college grad why do it differently for street cops?

Provide assistance for experienced cops who want relevant college credits to get some. But essentially most police work is not white collar work and we shouldn't try to compete with white collar jobs to attract college grads, and eliminate Oakland residents who are only high school graduates who would make good cops.

 

Len Raphael, Temescal

 

 

Len

Calm Down.

What I reported was  a random  conversation with a NCPC person who is not a city official, nor does his/her opinion represents City Hall.

I was expressing surprise that at $75000 - $200,000, salary not counting benefits, that city of Oakland has difficulty hiring "proven educated" Oakland residents to be police officers.  I don't know what's the qualifying guideline for police officers.

That's why I said, "May the best person get the job" on whatever is the criteria and market conditions. The most basic thing is that the investment should be good for the community the job serves. OPD is doing a lot of outreach for this new police academy. You can even volunteer as citizen interviewer.

Your response feels like another pointless swipe at Mayor Jean Quan.

Since you keeping pounding into us that police officers and other union workers are grotesquely overpaid. I would think you would expect a college degreed person " with a major in criminology, justice system etc..." at a minimal. A lot of college graduates in this economy would be happy to get $75,000 base pay starting salary with guaranteed promotion.  Contrary to assumption, agricultural job is the most dangerous job in America, not policing. That should alleviate some concerns of safety. To solve crime problems  requires brain work, whether it's learned from college, technical school or the street is not important. But think they must...

Police officers are not security guards. That's a different job and different set of criteria of responsbility and knowledge.

 

 

 

Leslie, apart from my pointing out the irony of not requiring our top elected officials to have any college education,  unlike you I do not assume that college training improves the performance of street cops.

East Coast and Mid West police departments are less likely to hold the Bay Area article of faith that college training = better performing police officers.

Sure college coursework is needed for certain para legal and lab tech, and for some psych counseling functions. But not all cops need that training.

Someone has to look at the unusually high OPD disability early retirement patterns and see if there is an unfavorable correlation with college training. For sure, awful work conditions, politics all have to be factored in.

Surely, Mayor Quan and at least one other council member could appreciate that college education is much less importance than job related competence.

Eliminating hiring points for college education and shifting them to directly related job criteria would help make our OPD more diverse, responsive to community, and grateful for a great paying job.

Len Raphael, Temescal

 

It's common for public safety organizations to professionalize the field by requiring--or preferring-- college degrees--this has been going on forever.

I find it disrespectful to tell somebody, who just stated his/her opinion, to calm down. First, he wasn't responding to your post. He was responding to the article (6 hours after your post). Second, you're the one who jumped the gun on your response. Maybe he does like to take shots at Mayor Quan. Who are you to defend the Mayor.

Third, your original post had no information. This misleads any reader.  "It turned out it's not that easy to hire Oakland residents who are also college graduates for police position." What does this mean? Why is it not that easy? What does "not that easy" even mean?

Don't defend  the Mayor before you know what you're defending her from. #weaksauce

This is a good article JI Ward. You're right that it's an issue with which we've dealt with for years.

My opinion is the same as Len's when it comes to hiring college educated officers. I believe that college educated recruits are looking for a job that can help them to pay off their substantial student loans and would be more apt to take the experience they gain with OPD and move on to something else. Along the same lines, I believe that recruits with HS diplomas would be more apt to stay longer and perhaps even move to/stay in Oakland.

I too have had conversations with NCPC and OPD officers and brass. For example, I spoke to a life long Oakland resident who moved out of town as soon as she got hired. Oh yeah, she said that she loved Oakland but she didn't want to live here. I told her that as long as 90% of our police force lives outside of town, they're always going to have an "us vs. them" mentality. We already see it when OPD calls in for help with large demonstrations such as Occupy. We have cops from all over Northern California beating up on our citizens (and visitors). Cops who don't live here have no investment. Therefore, they crack skulls and don't think twice about it.

We need to offer incentives to OPD, OFD, OUSD etc. so they will make an investment in our community rather than just commute here for work.

Hi Eric Sisneros

I have not seen your name before. Maybe you are new to the publication. Len Raphael has been pounding on Mayor Jean Quan unfairly for a long time. Understanding the emotions that arise out of these postings require a background history of posters. There's a bit of assumed knowledge here.

I defend the Mayor because I am a long time resident of Oakland. We have finally elected a grass-root mayor who shows up and who is ready to work hard for all residents of the city. I think that's a good thing. I also defend her out of a sense of justice. She's been treated under a different,  harsher standard than previous mayors and other officials.

Len Raphael deliberately misstate what I said to cause a flame war among posters. I never said a college education should be a requirement. I did state  being a police officer require knowledge and skill.

I have no problem of hiring cops with experience in lieu of education. In fact that's standard in all goverment jobs posting that I have ever seen. I define education not by a piece of paper. I define it by judging the person's character, knowledge, perseverance, provable work experience etc...

Eric S.

You are right that my original post contain no substantial information. I was making a friendly banter concerning  my surprise at the information. It was not meant as a dissertation to be dissected from all angles.

 

Len Raphael

What you are saying is that being a cop does not require training and judgement and is below the skill of a lab tech??? They can and should  learn everything on the job in a swashbuckling way???

I absolutely disagree with you in that respect.

I would not want any Oakland residents to be your hypothetical police officer's guinea pigs, especially when police officers carry lethal weapons.  At a minimum cops need to know the law: when to apply force, when to use restrain and many other knowledge. I don't know what you call it, but I call it REQUIRED EDUCATION before being allowed to perform this specific job.

Susan, the "professionalization" of police has been going on for  years across the country. I wouldn't be surprised if California and especially the Bay Area has been at the forefront of that.

But so what?

Oakland persistently has both crazy high crime rates and two decades of all too often justifed distrust by poor residents of OPD. There is absolutely no way we can afford to either hire more community based cops or free up money for whatever anti violence program you believe is needed unless we figure out ways to reduce the total compensation of cops and firefighters and get competent responsible security providers.

eg. extending the length of the academy might be more effective than giving hiring preferences for college courses. including community service during the extended academy might be worth trying too.

 

Len Raphael, Temescal

 

Len: Who's doing the best work to *fix* problems with the police and what models could Oakland follow? We've truly identified problems, how do we get to solutions?

(EDIT: Sorry in advance for the wall of text. It's not allowing me to separate my paragraphs at the moment). Mr. Raphael, I don’t think being college educated guarantees that someone will make a good police officer, but I think it does serve as a good general indicator. Having a college degree not only shows that you are literate, but it shows that you can reason (at least to some extent) and engage in critical thinking. It also shows that you are able to perform in a rigorous academic environment, like what one might expect in a police academy. Police officers are almost like lawyers in that they are expected to have a deep understanding of criminal law. It is important that prospective police recruits be able to demonstrate their ability to not only read and write, but grapple with complex legal concepts. I think it’s important that police officers have a strong academic background, because they spend more time reading and writing than they do shooting guns and arresting people. Now is someone without a college degree capable of performing well in a law enforcement role? Absolutely! But when police departments are looking for reasons to hire a potential recruit, a college degree lets them know right off the bat that the candidate is probably at least somewhat intelligent, can probably read and write rather well, can engage in abstract/critical thinking, perhaps can speak a little bit of a foreign language, is at least somewhat disciplined and committed, self-motivated, really cares about their future, etc. Of course a person without a college degree can be all of these things, but what the degree does is serve as some measure of proof of everything mentioned above. I don’t want to discount what you said earlier about experience versus education though, because I think you made an excellent point. I’m in the process of applying for OPD as an Oakland resident (born and raised) and UC Berkeley graduate, but I know that there are certain people in my family who didn’t go to college, but would still make better police officers than I could ever hope to be. Some people started working full-time right after graduating high school. They might have military experience or relevant law enforcement experience. They might also be highly intelligent people with all of the skills and character traits that are necessary to perform well in a law enforcement role. Why should they be penalized just because they chose to start working instead of going to college? I don’t think they should, and that’s why I think each prospective candidate needs to be evaluated on an individual basis, on their own individual merits, instead of being categorized and passed over based on just one type of qualification among many.

A conversation with an OPD recruitment officer a few years back revealed two things- 85% of OPD sworn officers wer not living in the city, and the biggest single barrier to local people getting accepted into the academy was simply bad credit- which is dumb, because that can actually be fixed fairly simply in less than 6 months. Instead of just rejecting local applicants with bad credit they could be referring them to local CBOs who do free credit fixing.

Spike, that is fascinating--you're saying that more of the local applicants had BAD CREDIT than people from outside the area? And that is a factor in who gets into the academy? Interesting, going to ask PIOs about this!!

I agree with TL.  However the college vs. no college is a side issue.

I agree Credit should not be a factor...this might come from a "Best Practices" type of criteria on a national basis where Recruiters get their own training and certification.  That might need to be reformed or adjusted to fit Oakland.

Either way, we need more Officers now, including those who are from here.

 

 

Livegreen, agreed. "This ends up costing the City and electorate more money and more crime.  Which impacts us all, especially communities of color."