Should Police Officers Be Required To Obtain A College Degree

A new bill proposed in California would make it mandatory for new police officers to have a college degree or be at least 25 years of age to get the job.

2020 has seen a number of initiatives aimed at changing, restructuring, and/or completely defunding police departments across the country.

A new bill ... AB-89 ... being proposed by California Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer seeks to make all new officers either, A) earn a 4-year college degree or, B) be at least 25 years of age in order to get their badge. Jones-Sawyer says that the job is too complicated and demanding to give to people who have not yet "fully developed" themselves.

His bill, introduced in the California Assembly on Monday, cites several studies showing a negative correlation between a police officer's age and their likelihood to use deadly force, suggesting that "high rate" officers involved in multiple instances of violence typically tend to be younger, and indicating that officers who have completed a bachelor's degree "were less likely to use physical force than officers with only a high school graduation." -  mic.com

Groups like the San Francisco Police Officers Association and the California Peace Officers’ Association don't seem to happy about the bill.

They feel it could negatively affect the recruiting of new officers, especially military veterans who are often under the age of 25, and also basically disallow applicants who didn't have the opportunity ... financially or otherwise ... to earn a degree prior to applying for law enforcement positions. (mic.com)

It's an interesting question, what do you think? Should Texas, or all 50 states for that matter, consider similar bills?