Atlanta Streamlines Police Academy by Hiring Criminals

[TresJay]

One in three recent Atlanta Police Academy graduates have criminal records

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/10/12/atlanta_police_academy.html

Twelve out of 33 officers — 36 percent — said they have been arrested or cited with a criminal offense.

"It does not mean they're not a quality candidate," Dancy said, adding that the department runs criminal background checks on all recruits. "It just means they made a mistake in their past."

Domestic assualt, drug use, concealed weapons charges, and failed psychiatric tests prompt Lt. Elder Dancy, who runs the Atlanta Police Department's recruitment unit to say, "we feel like we are hiring the type of officers who are [fit to be] Atlanta police officers."

It might be interesting to see how NH compares.

[Fluff and Stuff]

From the article,
""We would like, in an ideal world, to see every applicant with a clean record, but obviously that's not reality," said Atlanta police Lt. Elder Dancy, who runs the department's recruitment unit. "I don't think you'll find any departments who hire only applicants with squeaky-clean records."

Three decades ago, a police officer with a criminal record was much less common than it is now, said Robert Friedmann, a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University. But times have changed and many agencies have had to relax their hiring policies, Friedmann said."

I think one of the issues is that there are now many more laws.  Another reason is that enforcement for many laws (like drugs laws) has gone up a great deal over the last few decades (and even the last few years).  Without knowing the details, I am not sure but most of the laws these applicants broke likely shouldn't even be laws.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

This doesn't bother me, except for the fact that the people who had been in jail for doing harmless things are going to be putting people in jail for doing the same harmless things.

I already know the government people are violent, hypocritical and sadistic. In a way, this clouds the issue just like people get lost in the Democrat/Republican thing to not address the fact the system itself is wrong. How many people would simply demand that cops with criminal records be fired? How many will stand up and ask "If that thing is acceptable enough to allow you into the police department, why is the police department still enforcing those laws?"

[doobie]

Just re-enforces that fact that the police are thugs.

[J’raxis 270145]

Domestic assualt, drug use, concealed weapons charges, and failed psychiatric tests ...

Three out of four of these are victimless "crimes," of course...