I'm writing about a magical police force in my fictional world. In my fictional world, people attend the Police Academy when they are thirteen-fourteen. Although the police force in my fictional world is different from real-world police forces, there are still similarities. I would like to know more about real-world police forces and especially police education. What is the training like? What kind of courses do the police students take? Is the police education more practical or theoretical- do you sit down and read for the most part or are you out there in the field practicing? Do students choose a field to specialize in? How many hours a week do police students train? What do police students learn about violence, crime, interrogation, crime solving, correctional services, patrolling etc? People from police forces all over the world are appreciated! If you are not in a police force yourself, and you have a family-member or friend who is, feel free to tell me about your experiences!
I guess it is different in every country, but in my country there are two major police academies. One is the general police academy and the other the police officers academy. They share the basic education which is mostly comprised of theoretical training in many different courses and less field practice. Policemen from the general police academy train in more elementary courses while officers take a number of advanced classes like leadership or administrative and bureaucratic training (i don't know the exact words that translate the meaning of the courses names in English so there might be a few discrepancies). Other than that there are a few other police-like academies like academies for special guards(guards escorting convicts-criminals etc), who receive less and lower quality training. What police academy students learn about the topics you referred to is less than you would imagine. About violence,crime and patrolling what they mostly learn is mainly their jurisdiction (where they have the obligation to intervene and what protocols must be followed), what procedures the law dictates must be followed when patrolling/responding to a report and stuff like that. About interrogation everyone is taught the basics (what you can and cannot say, what you want and don't want the other person to say etc). Correctional services are not in the curriculum of the academy as the police is unrelated to their inner workings. Most of the required knowledge the student learns from partners/superiors and seminars rather than from the academy. Things like interrogation techniques, crime solving techniques, source handling etc. About your premise though, unless that police force works solely with magic it seems too impossible. A 13 year old kid would not in a million years manage to overpower a full grown man. Unless their last name is Norris or Bauer. Or a pre-pubescent person seems much too unlikely to properly follow orders and regulations or have the mindset to deal with crime effectively without being affected themselves. It sounds like powerpuff girls.
isn't this a job for Detective Google? Researching is my favourite part of writing... shouldn't it be at least one of yours?
Here we have Police foundations which is a two year college program, this is how most people get into policing. After that you then have to pass a (rather difficult) series of tests before you can get accepted as an officer. I am not kidding when I say A lot of people take police foundations because they expect it to be easy academically which it is not. Here is a list of classes to give you an idea: Career and College Success Canadian Criminal Justice System Psychology Sociology and Canadian Society Communications I Political Science/Public Administration Fitness and Lifestyle Management I That is for the first semester of two years, aside from fitness and lifestyle management it is all in class academics. They do extra practical things within these classes, they learn to shoot a taser, some people get tasered, they get to meet a lot of people who are still active on the force, go to court and watch cases, visit police stations and check out the evidence rooms. They also do learn self defense and get to experience holding a gun and baton. A lot of people drop out within the first semester here because it is a lot more boring then they were expecting and a lot of people who finish never go on to even try and pass the testing needed to be a police officer because it is known to be hard. I got that list of classes off the website for the college by sister attended, she took police foundations at Algonquin college in Ontario and I know if you Google "Police foundations courses" you can get lists of the different types if classes they have to take which might give you a better idea. Hope this helped a bit anyway.
Not sure if this still helps (it is a bit late, and I don't want to resurrect an old thread) but at one of the German police academies, they regularly send the students out on patrol to find (and appropriately punish) any sort of minor offence. This results in many really minor traffic offences being punished that would otherwise be ignored (like leaving your car with its windows open, or parking with the car facing the wrong direction, that sort of thing).
