police officers

BIGeastBEAST
Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:04:29 +0000

It was a joke, stop getting so huffy.

It the OP is so easily offended than law enforcement is the wrong career for her.

But, to answer the question - no, a sociology degree (even from a top 10% college) won’t help her on the job.

Sociology theory and reality often clash on the streets - violently. While it’s important to have empathy and a knowledge of environmental conditions, it’s much more important to develop a good command presence - which in my opinion is the best quality to have in a new officer.

If the OP is interested in gaining skills to help her on the job, she needs to look into self-defense courses, Verbal Judo courses and other training that implements Stress & Response techniques.

The best preparation is a military deployment. This cuts the learning curve greatly when put in patrol and effectively dealing with a hostile situation.

The FBI recently did a study (I will see if I can find it online) that researched attacks on police officers, and why these officers were attacked. The number one answer was that officers were who were attacked by perps usually had a poor command presence and appeared intimidated.

Sociology is great, but if you talked to officers who are in patrol they would rather have a former Marine anyday.

If the OP wants a career that allows her to practice more “sociology theory”, I suppose social work would be the appropriate field.

Every police officers starts in patrol, and depending on where you work you could be in patrol for a long time. Patrol is by far the most dangerous work in LE and that is really where you cut your teeth and prove your worth. If you can succeed in that environment, your future aspirations in LE will be limited, so really focus on preparing yourself for 1) The Academy, 2) Working in Patrol.

I’m not saying that Sociology and LE don’t have an obvious relationship, I’m just saying it really won’t do much in the actual day 2 day, other than make you feel more empathetic.

I’d sign up for the national guard, get a deployment in and then get into LE. After a deployment you will be much more prepared and have more on-the-job skills.