Part of the job of being a police officer in the United Kingdom is to take constant trainings in order to improve the performance of the service for the coming years. Training courses vary when it comes to the police ranking. It begins for people who can be potential police officers down to police officers of all ranks. In order to be qualified in the UK Police Force, a trainee must complete a specific course. Once they are accepted they must take further trainings as well for promotions.
So let’s start from the very beginning: the Recruitment Process. This phase is divided into two parts where the initial recruitment is the process of resourcing potential police officers for the Police force. In this case, everything starts at the application, interview and assessment stage. For aspiring police officers, this is where you apply for a position in the force. Staff from the Human Resource Department is going to evaluate you whether you’re qualified for the first initial training by helping candidates pass the interview and assessment stages of the police recruitment process.
Once you’ve passed the first part of the recruitment course, you will be transferred to the probationer training course (part two). This is an audio learning course to help probationary constables in learning the legislation they need to know to pass the two year probationary period. The course includes guidance on PACE, Police Powers, common and statutory law including road traffic, offensive weapons, theft, public order, assaults and much more.
If you pass the recruitment process, you will be presented with a wide variation of choices for courses that would be able to accommodate specific policing skills. The standard training courses are promotion courses for whenever you’re going to apply for a higher rank. General Police courses for the simultaneous trainings every police officer must undergo and Specialist courses for advance trainings that could possibly land you larger missions on national matters. Other than these, police officers are entitled to be in a specific department where they can be trained and educated in a more focused manner.
Specific trainings involves courses on Corrections/Court Security, Crime Scene, Critical Incidents, Criminal Investigations, Drugs/Narcotics, Fire Related, Homicide, Hostage, Interview/Interrogation, Languages, Leadership/Supervision, Legal / Liability, School Related, Traffic/Vehicular and Terrorism. An officer in the UK Police may take multiple training courses depending on their recent rankings. Some of these departments/ training courses only accept police officers that have successfully passed whereas missions entail more advanced skills and proper handling.