Police Recruitment Must Allow People From All Walks Of Life

POTENTIAL new police recruits need to have more than one avenue available to join the job, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

From July 2022 the only route into policing will be through degree programmes, as the College of Policing plans to require all new recruits to either hold a degree or undertake a three-year degree apprenticeship course while working as an officer.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said there was a place for degrees in policing, but said some of the best officers he had worked with hadn’t been to university.

He said: “There needs to be a mixed approach. There’s nothing wrong with this sort of way of getting people into the police. You could argue we’re more likely to get our future leaders from that pool potentially.

“But, also, some of the ex-military who are coming to policing haven’t got a degree and they make up some of the best police officers I’ve ever worked with. So I don’t think it should be all degree, but then again I don’t think it should be completely got rid of.

“I think you need to have a two-pronged system. We do this now already. We have direct entry into detectives, which is a different way of coming in, to people who do the degree and then go out on the streets.

“So let’s just broaden that approach and then we can capture the bright young talent out there and also get the more mature people who have got life experience, which will be very welcome.”

There has been much debate in policing circles about whether officers need degrees, with Northamptonshire Chief Constable Nick Adderley telling Police Oracle that some graduates had been “a bit taken aback by the role”, not expecting the violence involved and not realising they needed to work nights and weekends.

He added that a lot of the recruits were “very, very young” and “sadly lacking” in life experience.