Is Policing a Craft or a Profession

 

Police officers undergo training before they are considered as a police officer. Citizens usually expect the police officers to have wisdom, strength, courage, kindness, as well as excellent leadership skills (Lumsden, 2017). However, poor performance from the new police officers may result to poor performance and negative attitude from the community which thus affect the community relation, the impact on crime and also a civil liability, therefore, proper training is vital in improving the performance outcomes (Rowe, Turner & Pearson, 2016).

The training of the police officers has sparked issues about whether policing is a profession or a craft. A craft is an activity where the initial skills are gained during job training, and it needs innovative capabilities and manual instructions (Fleming & Rhodes, 2018). On the other hand, a profession is where skills are initially transferred to the recruits through a curriculum that is taught in the academy which will later be improved through experiences in the field.

Most of the police officers have argued that policing is a craft, and an individual needs to have passion rather than academics. They claim that academics are not necessary for police work, and a proper police officer needs only a good experience and knowledge of his/her job (Rowe, Turner & Pearson, 2016). Besides, others claim that policing is a profession putting academics as a main feature, and they believe someone cannot practice what they do not know.

Policing has been argued to have the critical features of a profession; one of it is the issue of having specialized knowledge and skills that are needed in delivering the services to society. Police officers are usually involved in frequent decision-making while on duty, and high-quality decisions are generally made when individuals have a good knowledge base and experiences concerning the issues at hand (Lumsden, 2017). Therefore, continuous professional training is usually necessary to improve the knowledge and skills which are gained in academics and also in the field. It is impossible to pick someone and take to the ground without knowing the requirements and ways in which policing is carried out.

Furthermore, there is accreditation done through professional organizations. This indicates that a police officer has specific qualifications for them to practice policing. For an individual to be an expert, he/she must meet specific requirements for them to qualify to be a candidate, for example, before recruitments and thus policing is a profession.

A profession also requires the needs of initial orientations towards the services and clients, and this is usually done in policing (Lumsden, 2017). The new police officers are generally oriented on the kind of services they offer and how they are done, which includes the area of service provision. The services provided by the police officers require a certain level of skills and knowledge that meets the expectations of the citizens, and just like any other profession, one needs to know how things are done and to generally familiarize with the environment before offering the services (Stanko & Dawson, 2016).

In addition, police officers should also have considerable discretion given to its members. It is a fact that, policing involves confidentiality during provision of services and must also include excellent communication skills to avoid issues of disrespect and to cause offense in various situations while providing their services to the citizens, and this is one of the features of professionalism. The police are also given the freedom to make decisions on what should be done with a particular situation that they come across with (Lumsden, 2017). Therefore, it is essential for them to understand what the law says before carrying out certain activities such as arresting a person. This can only be practiced well through professionalism.

Besides, the main goals of the policing are to reduce neighborhood crime, to enforce law and order and also to respond quickly when needed. Thus, they do not carry out their duties to make profits. It, therefore, places them under no competition with other organizations, which then promotes professional services to the members of the public (Dunham & Alpert, 2015).

There are various changes that have occurred for the past decades mainly in technologies, and also best practices have also rose and thus police officers also need to embrace the models for learning best practices, timely relevant information and new strategies that will promote service delivery to the citizens and achieving their goals (Dunham & Alpert, 2015).

 The debate to differentiate policing as a craft or as a profession has brought in a lot of issues, and a number of them describe it as more of craft than profession. The issue of job training supports the claim that it is a craft. The experiences that are learned in the field are considered as the most important part that provides them with skills that a police officer should always have and therefore, police work cannot rely on academics (Stanko & Dawson, 2016). Unfortunately, a police officer needs to have knowledge of the aspects of policing, which therefore requires them to have specific qualifications to enable them to provide the best service.

In conclusion, I believe that policing is a profession just like other professions in the medical field. It cannot be possible for a police officer to perform well in the area or even make better decisions without a good knowledge base of what policing involves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Dunham, R. G., & Alpert, G. P. (2015). Critical issues in policing: Contemporary readings. Waveland Press.

Fleming, J., & Rhodes, R. (2018). Can experience be evidence? Craft knowledge and evidence-based policing. Policy & Politics, 46(1), 3-26.

Lumsden, K. (2017). ‘It’sa profession, it isn’ta job’: Police officers’ views on the professionalisation of policing in England. Sociological Research Online, 22(3), 4-20.

Rowe, M., Turner, E., & Pearson, G. (2016). Learning and practicing police craft. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 5(3), 276-286.

Stanko, E. A., & Dawson, P. (2016). What Should Be the Balance Between ‘Craft Experience’and ‘Scientific Evidence’. In Police Use of Research Evidence (pp. 63-63). Springer, Cham.