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The purpose of this paper is to assess the value that police officers with criminal justice degrees place on their personal educational experiences, while also comparing those perceptions with officers educated in other academic disciplines. Its focus also rests on the degree's contribution to conceptual and managerial skills, as opposed to mere occupational expertise. Disagreement between the academic and law enforcement communities concerning the value of criminal justice education creates an imbalance eroding potential benefits. Recent studies highlight this division as even pre‐service majors regard the degree as unrelated to most policing functions.

Police departments with 50 or more sworn officers from across the State of Alabama (United States) were the data collection sites (n=21). In total, 16 departments participated and 1,114 officers (57 percent) responded to a mail survey (2002).

The paper finds that officers with criminal justice degrees (n=299) reported that the degree substantially improved their knowledge and abilities on a wide range of areas from the criminal justice system to conceptual and managerial skills. Responses did not differ significantly from officers educated in non‐criminal justice academic disciplines.

The paper demonstrates that college‐educated police officers regard the criminal justice degree as more than mere occupational training.

The paper equips police managers with tangible findings that police officers with criminal justice college degrees value its mental and conceptual contributions.

The growing concern about school violence and security has led to a dramatic increase in the number of police officers working in schools. This increase has been accompanied by a focus on the training of school-based law enforcement, the discretion that they exercise when interacting with youth, and the concern that these factors may lead to more youths facing arrest and formal processing by the juvenile and criminal justice system. What is not well understood is whether or not having formal school resource officer (SRO) training or higher education impacts the officer’s decision making when responding to an incident involving a student. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper uses survey data from school police officers within the USA (n=179) to examine the officer’s preferred post-incident method of disciplining the youth, from the most punitive and formal approach of suspension or referral to juvenile authorities, to the less punitive and informal approach such as diversion or warn and release.

Overall, the study found that officers who have received formal SRO training were more likely to prefer a formal resolution to the incidents, and more highly educated officers tended to favor less punitive and informal responses.

These findings question the current state of the effectiveness of SRO training at using diversionary tactics for conflict resolution in a school setting.