LE Pros; You're Needed in Academia.......

[Glenn E. Meyer]

This is mildly amusing and a take on LEOs in class. Years ago one of my grad psych professors was going the run the famous eye witness experiment in his night psych class. A grad student would run in and shoot him with a starter pistol and run out. The shooter would curse him and then go bang. Then the prof would fall and then jump up. The class would write down what they saw.

However, half the class was Buffalo cops. Nice guys - met from my class in the middle of a blizzard.

Anyone, we debated telling the prof. We grad students didn't really like the shooter - so it gave us pause. But we did the right thing and the experiment was aborted. The wave of SW Model 10s opening up would have been a hoot (sorry to say).

[Dagga Boy]

I LOVE debating the fantasy land folks. With that said, I was hated in my Criminal Justice Program when I was a college student as I was already running on the mega conservative side even then, and reality checking both professors and dope smoking fellow students was my passion......wait, I also found out that the professors were smoking dope too when we were on a special class visitng a bunch of prisons in California.
Anytime, anywhere, but there is not a lot of outreach to LE. Most of the guys we had "teaching" at colleges had no business teaching anybody about law enforcement as they were guys who tended to be parked under a bridge doing college work during their shifts rather than actually doing cop stuff. Same type of guys who call Glaser's "teflon coated cop killer bullets" and want to know if they are going to need any extra clips to do the qualification course...........yea, those guys.

[MD7305]

My college experience in CJ as an undergraduate student consisted of openly-anti police professors ironically teaching people who predominately wanted to be cops...in conjunction with those idiots who think they will learn how to skirt the law. All you guys know them, the toads who you arrest who always say " I'm studying CJ" while we're riding to the detention center. It was hard to swallow as a 22yr old kid who had no experience in LE and no grasp why the public loves to hate cops. 10yrs later, I see it as a good preparation of how society views cops and some of the brainless morons I encounter everyday that don't know what they don't know about my job. When someone asks me about college related to LE I encourage them to get a degree in a field they will enjoy working in when the get tired of LE ruining their lives. Geology, I liked geology. Why didn't I major in Geology?

[Shellback]

Those on blood pressure meds might want to skip to the end on this one...

The blonde two rows down disagreed.

"Well, there was this episode of Cops where one guy had a gun and the cop, you know, used his gun, so he like had a reason to shoot him.At the prison, like, no one had guns except the guards, so like why did they have to shoot one of the innmates? It was just beatings and stabbings...."

While im doing The Facepalm, the professor jumps into the circus....what he said is unfit for repetition here. Is it any wonder the average Joe is so misguided on why police do what they do?

If you're not going to post what the professor said why would someone need their BP meds? It's like a joke without the punchline. Did you bother to correct or debate the blonde you disagreed with?

[Dr. No]

I believe the adage "Those who can't do, teach" would absolutely apply here. Obviously there are exceptions to that, but ....

[John Hearne]

I'd disagree. My brother and I both have advanced degrees, my daughter recently completed hers and a few other friends and family have a fair amount of experience with academia, and none of us have noticed any unusual hostility to those with real-world experience. Where the hostiliyt usually comes is when "real world" wants to try to argue their experience and belief trumps research and analysis based on hundered or thousands of others.

My observation (based on a limited sample size) is that there isn't a lot of middle ground. My wife's CJ program was filled with practitioners and they recruited practitioners to teach. Other departments are very theory based and don't seem to have many practitioners at all.

[David Armstrong]

My observation (based on a limited sample size) is that there isn't a lot of middle ground. My wife's CJ program was filled with practitioners and they recruited practitioners to teach. Other departments are very theory based and don't seem to have many practitioners at all.

IME a lot of that is based on the type of institution. The smaller regional institutions that focus on teaching tend to be very practitioner oriented. The large flagship institutions that focus on research tend to look for theoreticians. That is the core of the situation. The flagships get the most attention and thus most people believe they reflect all levels, while they really don't tend to be representative of anything other than large flagship research institutions.

[David Armstrong]

I believe the adage "Those who can't do, teach" would absolutely apply here. Obviously there are exceptions to that, but ....

There are probably more exceptions to the rule than actually fit into the rule, particularly if you include those that already did and have started a second career.

[SteveK]

Institutional instruction gives a good background for basics but not much for real life experience. You are going to be re-taught in the academy and on the street by the BTDT guys and gals.

[Totem Polar]

I believe the adage "Those who can't do, teach" would absolutely apply here. Obviously there are exceptions to that, but ....

May as well add: those that can do neither proficiently, administrate. Again, plenty of exceptions, but the stereotype probably originates from somewhere within academia.