Silke Jasso
A California legislator has proposed a plan to help create a more responsible and less deadly police force for his State. The bill would require all incoming local and state officers to have a bachelor’s degree or be at least 25 years old. Democratic assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer introduced Assembly Bill 89 to the state legislature earlier this week. According to the Sacramento Bee, he hopes that the new education requirements would help lessen the incidence of violent police encounters and other forms of police misconduct.
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Through a statement, Jones-Sawyer stated, “This data-driven bill relies on years of study and new understandings of brain development to ensure that only those officers capable of high-level decision-making and judgment in tense situations are entrusted with working in our communities and correctional facilities.”
Proposed Law Would Add College Education Requirement For California Police
The bill currently cites at least six sources as a basis for his proposal, which includes a study that was conducted in 2007 that found police officers with bachelor’s degrees are less likely to use any physical force or excessive force than their High School diploma educated officers. According to the Washington Post, so far this year police have killed 134 people in California which surpassed last year’s total count of 135 fatal police officer shootings. Requiring a college degree isn’t anything new to other places. In England and Wales, police officers have been required to have a four-year degree as of 2020. Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden also require their officers to have some sort of level of college education in addition to their training.
In the United States, New Jersey, Illinois, and North Dakota all require their state law enforcement officers to complete at least two years of college or some sort of equivalent before they enter the force. While there have been no statistics showing the direct impact of these requirements, as of 2019 all of these three states were in the bottom 11 of those of the lowest number of any police killings, according to the MappingPoliceViolence.org.
Proposed Law Would Require Police Officers to be 25 and Up
Proposed Law Would Require Police Officers To Have Bachelor's Degree Or Be 25 https://t.co/cJgOBYS4NQ pic.twitter.com/lrxc6TW081
— CBS Sacramento CBS13 (@CBSSacramento) December 8, 2020
Right now most states require any new recruit to be somewhere between the minimum age of 18 and 21, so California would also have the oldest age requirement for officers if the proposal becomes a law. In California, police officers must be at least 18, and California highway state police officers are required to be at least 20. Through a joint statement with the assemblymember, Esteban Nunez, director of a Los Angeles-based nonprofit the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, stated, “The evidence is clear—the prefrontal cortex of the brain is not fully developed until age 25. It is with similar logic that youth must be treated as youth by our criminal justice system.”
Dr. Christina Gardiner, Criminal Justice at the University of California, Fullerton, conducted a study in 2017 looking at how higher education impacts police in the United States. Her research, which surveyed 958 law enforcement agents in 50 states, concluded that college-educated officers are more willing to embrace any department-wide changes, especially new policing technology and methods.
