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proficiencies, expertise, or simply to update and/or enhance a veteran officer's knowledge and performance, basic training represents the initial training that a police recruit receives; that is, it is intended “to orient new officers to the department, teach them about the department's goals and objectives, and provide them with the necessary skills and knowledge required to do the job” (Dempsey, 1999, p. 101). Addressing the goals and objectives of basic training, Conser and Russell (2000) suggested that it encompasses seven fundamental principles: (1) to orient an officer to the nature of police work, (2) to indoctrinate an officer with the organization and its goals and objectives, (3) to transfer the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the job, (4) to standardize procedures and increase efficiency, (5) to build confidence so that “critical tasks can be practiced and mastered in learning situations,” (6) to enhance safety and help assure survival, and (7) to build morale and discipline. Considering the foregoing, the mission of basic police training can be described as “a process to instill a recruit with the requisite knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes, behaviors, and competencies necessary to efficiently and effectively discharge the duties and responsibilities inherent to that of a professional police officer.” While such a mission may present itself as a straightforward “academic exercise,” it is hardly the case, for the success of policing lies not just in what a police officer does but perhaps more importantly, how one does it, which speaks to, in great part, the 6 months of conditioning that occurs during the process of basic training (p. 323).
Before addressing the instructional methodologies used to facilitate basic training, it is necessary to acknowledge that the curricula within America's police academies, not unlike those in other democratic countries, encompass a wide range of topics and disciplines. These embody the three educational domains of learning identified by Bloom (1969) in his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, namely, the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. While appendix A provides a link to the curriculum prescribed by the New Jersey Police Training Commission (PTC), it is important to point out some of the major areas of study within basic training. These include criminal justice, criminology and