Movement now proposing to require LEOs to be 'licensed' like nurses.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Caught a brief ending snippet on TV yesterday, but didn't catch enough to offer much info. It mentioned something about some movement now proposing to require LEOs to be 'licensed' like nurses. !

Think about it ... NOT a bad idea, IMHO. Require a mandatory Bachelor's degree in something like Criminal Justice, they would sit a licensing exam and hold a license that allows them to work in their field of law enforcement. NO LICENSE, NO JOB.

Require something like mandatory yearly education and CEU for relicensure. Serious disciplinary infractions must be reported & brought up to an appointed State Board for review. And that Board of LE must be composed of diverse members who also include CIVILIANS.

Boy, could you just see the hulabaloo rising against such a change!

One major issue I could see is that law enforcement is civil service, whereas nsg is by & large, public/private employment. Also, the power of the unions would be challenged. And am not forgetting that LE is predominately male - that will be difficult to temper.

When I first read this thread early on, I was thinking along the lines of my expanding the topic of this posting "could the police learn something from nurses" to "could law enforcement learn from nursing"? I think it most assuredly could, but not without a great deal of resistance, hollering & screaming and a tooth & nail fight & all-out war.

Other opinions? Seems some others may have been thinking along the same lines.

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Great! Now they need a national registry like nurses so we can see who has been disciplined.

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Specializes in Psych.

They should also give us nurses tasers and weaponry to defend ourselves against acutely combative patients! The patients have more rights than we do!

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

An opinion:

Massachusetts needs to require licensing of police officers.

Along with three other states, Massachusetts does not license police officers but requires licenses for over 50 other trades and professions, including hairdressers, barbers, plumbers, electricians, lawyers, teachers, doctors and many others.

Even though police officers carry weapons and can severely injure or kill people, Massachusetts does not require them to be licensed and, as a result, there is no procedure to revoke the license of a police officer who engages in serious misconduct. Even if fired or convicted of a crime, a Massachusetts police officer can go to another law enforcement agency and work as an officer...

https://www.aclum.org/en/licensing-police-officers

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Some of my points exactly! Particularly, no definable oversight!

One 'bad apple' can then move on without ANY worry off past history catching up. And yes, 'bad nurses' also move about freq but not as publicized as LEOs.

One thing been noticing in this distressing situation is that at issue in Minnesota that 'disgraced' cops are still eligible for their funded pensions. One article I read commented that if allowed to 'retire' now, that cop could still acquire $1.5 mil over time.

Eighteen disciplinary 'rips' in his personal file and he still can retire with a pension - how old is he anyway.

Nobody said 'life is fair'.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
On 6/14/2020 at 8:40 PM, A Hit With The Ladies said:

They should also give us nurses tasers and weaponry to defend ourselves against acutely combative patients! The patients have more rights than we do!

No! Nurses must not injure patients: https://www.RN.ca.gov/practice/npa.shtml#bpc

I was never a mental health nurse. We critical care nurses were able to attend a class that was required for psychiatric and Emergency department direct care staff. Even with little experience we night shift nurses were able to safely take down big and not so big strong patients. The most difficult was a medium size young man on PCP. Even when restrained in a bed with locked wheels he shook the bed across the room. I was the heaviest at about 130 pounds. We could NOT take down a person with a weapon, but never had to as the ER would send patients to us with only a gown on.

In general we could call a "Code Gray" for extra staff immediately so we could restrain a suddenly violent patient.

I posted about some nurses who had a problem with violent patients or visitors in their ER. Here is that post: https://allnurses.com/violence-nursing-t654547/?do=findComment&comment=6859204

I think police should learn "The Takedown" for use on an unarmed person.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

I hope licensing police and making officer a true profession is part of the discussions resulting from the world wide protests against police brutality. I have police in my family and neighborhood who I love very much.

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Specializes in retired LTC.
13 hours ago, herring_RN said:

I hope licensing police and making officer a true profession is part of the discussions resulting from the world wide protests against police brutality. I have police in my family and neighborhood who I love very much.

YES, this!

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Specializes in ER.

I think it's definitely an idea whose time has come.

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Specializes in Psych.

How about a movement where if you are caught with narcotics or hard drugs, you're given the death penalty (like in Singapore or Indonesia)? Why not also have mandatory capital punishment if you kill someone while incarcerated, or if you kill a police officer in the line of duty? I'm all for strong deterrents against criminals.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
58 minutes ago, A Hit With The Ladies said:

How about a movement where if you are caught with narcotics or hard drugs, you're given the death penalty (like in Singapore or Indonesia)? Why not also have mandatory capital punishment if you kill someone while incarcerated, or if you kill a police officer in the line of duty? I'm all for strong deterrents against criminals.

Feel free to petition your legislator if that's the type of laws you prefer. Right now we're talking about reforming police...not civilians.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

And speaking of civilians --- I may have posted this somewhere, but I think civilians should be in on any activities that investigate any charges of police brutality, guns fired, critical take-down maneuvers, videoed inflammatory public interactions, etc. For too long, the sad reality has been that the foxes are in charge of watching their own hen houses. And with impunity from civilian scrutiny.

History long presented the same dilemma in jury selection, but changes have happened to include minorities, women, young & old, etc. Still NOT quite a perfect system, but with more equally diverse representation.

It's sad that the WHOLE law enforcement profession is taking such a hit at this time. But that system has been, and is still in need of revision.

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