The question I will be answering in this research paper is; Which is more important for a Peace Officer / Corrections Officer to have, education or experience? I'm going to start by explaining how both have their benefits and how both can also have their downfalls if any. I feel that for the job experience can go a very long way, but you can't obtain that experience unless you have knowledge in that specific field before hand. Let me emphasize on that, say you have two different people in the field and one has a college degree while the other joined the force right out of high school. The person who attended college anywhere from two years to four years for their degree is going to have a vast amount of knowledge on the field they're going into. For instance, he will know the laws, criminal procedures, and have far more information on his legal rights and much more, while the other person had to learn from their experience. Even though let's say he has 4 years of experience on the other person, he knows far more knowledge in the field because of his first hand experience. That could be a key factor in saving somebody's life, or even his or her own. There are so many things that come in to play and it really all depends upon what the job title is or what exactly they could be doing in that field. Let's say John has been working in the field for 15 years and there is an internal promotino that he's convinced he's qualified for, but he may lose that job to somebody with a college education due to the vast amount of knowledge they can bring to the table, and the fact that they can be molded into the person management wants. When it comes to experience reputation is just as important: simply working 40 hours a week for 15 years isn't going to win you any brownie points. What did you do to decrease crime rate? How did you interact with the civilian population? Did you have any accidents/ mistakes and if so how many? All of these can be a major factor in experience over education. As I stated before, experience is always a great thing, but sometimes it can have it's downfall. When the Department needs a specific person for a specific job, they can take a College Graduate and they can literally mold them into anything they want. Now this can be a downfall to ones career aswell, due to the fact that it could lead to corrupt and morally unjust leadership. No matter which way you look at this, they are both great things to have, having one or the other is a great thing and they can both lead to different advancements in the workplace. It's all determined on your
