NCJ Number
74734
Date Published
1977
Length
106 pages
Annotation
This study examines the police education programs of 35 Canadian community colleges, reviews literature on the police and higher education, and provides guidelines for college-level police courses in Canada.
Abstract
Discussion of community colleges in Canada covers their history and highlights colleges in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces offering programs of interest to the police. The number of community colleges offering these programs per region ranges from 0 to 13, and programs vary widely in length, credit conferred, content, and academic quality. The report includes college names and the region's college system; briefly describes each program; and reveals that while Quebec relies exclusively on its unique educational program for police, other regions offer only incidental police study at the college level with traditional police colleges handling most police education. A review is also presented of prominent Canadian and American literature on police higher education, which finds, in general, that most college law enforcement programs tend to be excessively oriented to training and lack adequate faculty. Guidelines developed for Canadian police higher education courses recommend that interaction be fostered for law enforcement students with students of other disciplines; that programs devote less than half their time to police-related studies and exclude material taught police recruits; that social studies, liberal arts, a wide variety of electives, and counseling be provided; and that faculty have proper credentials. Also discussed are university programs offered to police. Footnotes and 87 references are given. Lists of colleges and universities and their law enforcement programs are appended along with course descriptions, program guidelines, and a model for police education.