Hiring Standards for Police

Jess Maghan

Police agencies are governed and influenced by a political and governmental social system operating in interrelated roles with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Within the system, police hiring practices are influenced by federal, state, and local lawmaking bodies; city managers and mayors; corporation counsels and city planners; community advocates; and federal and state courts. Beneath these exigencies lies a broad and dynamic social system composed of cultural, educational, political, religious, and economic institutions, including the mass media that also shape this process. How police are recruited and hired, trained and retained, must be seen in the context of this vast and complex network of social institutions. The enormous progress during the past two decades in declaring operational efficacy, mission statements, and professional standards by individual police departments represents the most solid evidence for equitable hiring standards of American law enforcement. In the 1960s–1970s, minorities and women demanded ...

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