Memphis Police axe college requirement

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Dropped requisite stirs up debate

When a new Memphis Police recruit class begins Jan. 21, there may not be many eggheads among the group.

Not everyone thinks that's necessarily a bad thing.

In November, the city lifted a requirement that candidates have two years of college or two years of active military to be considered as a police cadet.

As it has in cities across the country, the change in standards has stirred some controversy.

More than 80 percent of the nation's 17,000 law enforcement agencies have positions they can't fill, according to a Dec. 7 article by William J. Woska, a professor at Golden Gate University in Carmel, Cal., in Police Chief magazine.

Since the 1990s, interest in becoming a police officer has declined, according to Woska. Competition from other areas, including Homeland Security and Border Patrol, which has been on a hiring spree, has cut into the pool of applicants.

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[2Design]

1. you don't need college to shoot people - look at the armed killers

we have in the services and on the streets - better to find someone with street smarts

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2. Effective neighborhood policing is the answer.

A 5-year-old program that sends rookie police officers to crime hot spots in New York City has helped the city achieve the lowest murder rate in 45 years and will be doubled in size in 2008, police officials say.

When asked last week if there was a single reason for the decline in crime, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly cited Operation Impact, which sends rookie police officers to narrowly defined areas that have suffered from high crime, some no larger than a housing project or a shopping corridor.

NY police credit rookies for declining murder rate

IIRC, warnings were given that reduction of {wo}manpower would create chaos on neighborhoods. Years of loss of life and property had to prove it.