Police education and role play: Insights from the literature

Abstract

This article provides a literature review into the utilisation of role play and reflection, as valuable teaching strategies which should be considered for implementation, within the Police Education Qualification Framework. The aim of this article is to challenge the current pedagogical teaching methods utilised as part of the National Policing Curriculum, by highlighting the benefit of a more experiential-based learning strategy, for Professional Policing Degree students, based within England and Wales.

“Insufficient guidance and a lack of preparation”: Police academy training and the reality of police work

“…Focusing on separate elements of police training, and involving recruits, senior officers and academy staff, the use of roleplay scenario training is applied across the general-duties training curriculum to determine how recruits would perform against typical day-to-day scenarios of police work (Antrobus et al, 2019;Miles-Johnson, 2019;Rajakaruna et al, 2017). Whist it does have its supporters (see Turner, 2022) critics of roleplay training, however, argue that they are not consistent in terms of the level of imparted knowledge that recruits gain from this training approach. This is because the delivery of the curriculum is not heavily regulated in Australia or other parts of the globe, and police trainers differ in the way teaching and learning is facilitated (Green, 2018;Kleygrewe et al, 2022).…”

A New Generation of Police Officers: Experiences of Student Officers Undertaking the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship in One UK Police Force

“…The training and education of officers is often debated (Cox and Kirby, 2018) with other professions drawing upon academic qualifications as standardised entry (Tilley and Laycock, 2016;Cox and Kirby, 2018) such as nursing, teaching, medicine and law (Holdaway, 2017;Cox and Kirby, 2018;Turner, 2021). The rationale here is typically to attract certain recruits with particular abilities (Hough and Stanko, 2019).…”

“…Much of the evidence base concerning the 'dialogue of the deaf' outlines how police culture is not receptive to higher education (Hough and Stanko, 2019). A culture, that is different to that of academia (Turner, 2021). Particularly when considering Waddington's (1999) Canteen Culture, in which officers devise ad-hoc solutions to changeable problems (cited in, Steinheider et al, 2012) in comparison to academics that are more critical and removed from the realities of policing (ibid).…”

“…As part of Policing Vision 2025 and 2030, The College of Policing and National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) have been active in their efforts to professionalise policing (Crawford, 2017;Tompson et al, 2017;Hough and Stanko, 2019). This agenda has been heavily influenced by the Neyroud (2011) review of police training (Holdaway, 2017;Norman and Williams, 2017;Turner, 2021), suggesting a level four entry route for police recruitment (Hough and Stanko, 2019). The relevant key change here being the introduction of the Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) (Williams and Cockcroft, 2019).…”

“…This introduction transformed policing to become a graduate profession, requiring police forces and universities to jointly deliver degrees to level six (Bachelors Honours Degree) (Cox and Kirby, 2018;Pepper et al, 2021). This includes three new entry routes: Police Constable Degree Apprenticeships (PCDA), Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP) or a Degree in Professional Policing (Hough and Stanko, 2019;Turner, 2021). There is evidence to suggest that officers engaging with higher education can develop as stronger critical thinkers and have analytical skills to have a better understanding of complex problems (Norman and Williams, 2017;College of Policing, 2020b).…”