University education for the police veteran: the liberalization of the profession

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explore the relationship between post-secondary education and mid-career supervisory police officers in one Canadian urban police service. The research will examine whether these officers, through the completion of a university degree programme, will have less conservative and correspondingly more liberal attitudes that are posited to be essential attributes for the successful implementation of community-based policing. The research will examine the police subculture as a factor in police education at the post-secondary level to determine what effect, if any, it has on the “liberalization” of the profession. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the surveyed population, this thesis will seek to make recommendations on the future and nature of police involvement in post-secondary education as a means of developing skills required by individual officers as well as the relationship required between the police and the community to fully implement the desired mutual goal of community safety.