Half a century ago, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD, or “the Department”) and its version of professionalism were models for police agencies worldwide. Law enforcement and the concept of police professionalism have since changed. So, too, via several significant events, has the reputation of the LAPD.

The change in the standing of the Department was confirmed by theUnited States of America v. City of Los Angeles, California, Board of Police Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Police Department Consent Decree of June 15, 2001(the “consent decree”). This wide-ranging document mandates the implementation...

At first glance, it might seem that there is little to logically link police instruction on use of force, search and seizure, arrest procedures, community policing, and diversity awareness. Why, for example, should an academy integrate community-policing concerns with instruction regarding basic arrest techniques? How does it serve the police department or the public to consider demographic characteristics when teaching use-of-force procedures? Does providing equal service to all mean that identical procedures have to be employed for every search, regardless of a person’s gender, religion, race, ability to communicate, or handicaps? The answers to these and similar questions are found...

The corporateness element of professionalism implicitly requires adherence to and maintenance of standards, both at an individual and institutional level. The requirement of professional standards implies that there must be training regarding these standards; otherwise, there is no opportunity to inculcate the values and methods of the profession. Furthermore, the training must not only transmit the profession’s ethos, it must do so in such a way that allows no conflicting interpretations. Simply establishing accepted standards is insufficient. The accepted standards must be communicated to and enforced by LAPD officers.

Implementing the requisites of corporateness makes many demands on an organization...

“Professionalism” for police today encompasses far more than the police professionalism model of 50 years ago. The earlier movement for police professionalism, more properly considered a police reform movement, had the effect of isolating police from the community, often to the degree that they were perceived as unresponsive and not sufficiently accountable to public needs. Such isolation was particularly apparent during the civil unrest of the late 1960s. Police might have been tactically or technically proficient in terms of their professional skills, but as a group they were not proficient communicators. Community-oriented policing (or community policing) and the community...

In 1977, political scientist William Ker Muir concluded that the essence of police work is coercion. Muir’s argument is summarized in Fyfe et al. (1997, pp. 43–44) as follows:

Like politicians . . . police are in the business of convincing people to do things they would not otherwise be inclined to do. . . . police face a major challenge in trying to avoid the use of force in their attempts to get others to behave in certain ways. . . . good police officers spend much of their time in skillful . . . manipulation of other...

Our study of the Los Angeles Police Department training system revealed many areas in need of improvement before the LAPD can consider its officers proficient in use of force, search and seizure, arrest procedures, community policing, and diversity awareness. These findings and accompanying recommendations appear throughout the preceding pages. The recommendations are provided separately in Appendix M.

Yet there is much to be optimistic about for the leaders of the LAPD, in general, and those responsible for training, in particular. Needed improvements are rarely a function ofwhatneeds to be covered by the Department’s curricula. Rather, the issue is...