Expert: Jack Toomey - 5/21/2009

Question
QUESTION: I have been wanting to go into the police force ever since my dad got locked away for sexual abusing me and my sister. I got interested in law and how everything works. I have had a special kind of "gift" in my life where i can talk to a complete stranger for an hour and know their whole life history. Its been a weird thing but now i use it to help allot of people move on and get on the road to recovery. But I am in highs and i cant get a strait answer from anybody on what i need to do. What college courses do i need to take, do i need a foreign language? Do you think once i take those coures i will be able to get in? I know its no tlike the show but i want to do somthing right with my life.

ANSWER: Beth,

I hope that you are not being influenced by a television show.  I have gotten a ton of questions from kids who have been watching "SVU".  The television show is not realistic and in real life there are no units that do the things that you see on tv.  There are detectives of course who work with victims but it is no where near what you see on television.  So please do not go to college thinking that you are going to be racing around the city like the people that you see on the television show.  It simply does not happen.

You asked what you need.  First of all I hope that you realize that if you are hired by a police department that you will spend many years as a uniformed officer before you would ever be considered to go into the detective section.  So you will finish high school with a near perfect attendence record, have a perfect disciplinary record, and a high GPA.  The on to college.  It does not matter what your degee is in.  What is important is that you have a degree.  Anyone telling you anything else does not know what they are talking about.

After you graduate from college you will apply to a police department just like any other job.   The difference is that only about 15% of those who apply actually get hired.  Assuming that you do you will go to the police academy and then spend many years on the street until someone thinks that you are good enough to go into detectives.  Suprprisingly there are not many officers who want to do that.  A lot changes during an officers career.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: What if i wanted to get a degree in psychology and sociology could i do somthing like profiling with the police department or wold i still have go into the police academy

Answer
No one goes straight into a specialized unit without serving for years on the street as a uniformed officer.  No one.  Think about this way.  If someone took several classes in anatomy would you go to them for a serious medical issue or would you go to the doctor?  Would a famous French restaraunt that needed a chef hire a guy because he knows how to make a cheese sandwich?  

The real classroom is on the street.  That is where you learn how to determine if people are lying, how to interview people, how to coax information from people, how to spot suspicous situations.  None of these things can be learned in a college classroom.

I think that some of the FBI profilers are civilians so if you have that much adversion to being a real police officer first you might want to explore that path.