Educating police for uncertain times: the Australian experience and the case for a ‘normative’ approach

Abstract Police find themselves operating in difficult times. High expectations and increased accountability do not sit comfortably with rigid organisational and hierarchical rank-based command structures. Competing notions about what policing ought to be are currently being played out. A contest over a ‘service’ or ‘force’ perspective mirrors the political and social unease about how to deal with law and order issues amid the complexity of contemporary life. Struggling to deal with these uncertain times, senior police managers understand the need for a transformational shift in order to keep policing relevant. They recognise that a significant part of that movement is about taking new approaches to training and education. While it is reasonable to say that police do not always comprehend the training and education environment, they do have a stated commitment to professional formation and development. That commitment has waxed and waned and poor choices have been made in the past. But policing has not been well served by education bureaucracies or providers of education services either.