Big blue comeback, or thinning blue line?

After an alarming and seemingly hopeless decline in the number of NYPD recruits, there has been a dramatic reversal. New hires are almost on pace to replace the estimated 3,800 officers who will retire this year. But attrition within a few years is far higher than it was in prior generations. Officers are being lured to other police departments, less so for reasons of commuting and pay, than for the promise of greater job satisfaction and public recognition.

The recent record staffing lows are largely attributable to demoralization caused by bail reform, loss of qualified immunity and "defund the police" rhetoric. There have been additional aggravating factors, such as the downgrading and reclassification of crimes for which suspects were arrested, and even the de facto decriminalization of some crimes, such as shoplifting.

It demeans their service, renders their motivation largely futile,  mocks the dignity and primacy of law and jeopardizes communities.

Law enforcement is a political football and magnet for demagoguery. Both mainstream and "fringe" media credit (or blame) what they deem the lowering of qualification standards for the burgeoning recruitment.

What do they mean?   

They are referring to the dropping of required college credits from 60 to 24. Additionally, the age of eligibility to become an officer was reduced from 25 years old to 20.5 years old. As long as stability and capacity for sound judgment under pressure are not compromised, the age differential won't matter.

How did they decide on the sixth month's difference between ages 20 and 21? Did they just split the difference?  

The mere quantity of college credits accumulated by officers has no bearing on their performance. What counts is the semester hours' relevancy to the job. This is not as restrictive as it sounds, because police work is ever-growingly complex and involves law, science, technology and psychology. 

Cutting credit requirements is unpopular with university bursars and those who equate credit loads with professionalism, but it is sensible.

But Kenneth Quick, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former NYPD inspector, calls the accelerated rate of recruitment, and presumably the relaxation of impertinent criteria for hiring, "a shell game." He seems to equate a higher volume of stumbling blocks with higher standards of credentialing and feels that lower standards, lower job satisfaction and performance are connected.

Academics sometimes develop intellectual discipline and broader perspectives that may or may not translate into sounder judgment and action, but not necessarily, and certainly not when there is no correlative relevance between classroom instruction and confrontation with reality in the field. The fetish for any old diploma has got to go.

Some of our worst flops as presidents had stellar college transcripts and vice versa. And current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who was never a police officer, is colossally better than one of her recent predecessors, Dermot Shea, who was. 

Ongoing professional development, when required, should be wherever possible led by experts, preferably union members, who have had firsthand experience on the job. They are almost superior to outside contractors and vendors. 

The requirements to become a police officer are constantly being reviewed, befitting the profession’s high-stakes level of responsibility. The same cannot be said of the selection of Supreme Court justices.

Behind doors that are minimally ajar, but sufficient to pass as an open process, judicial convention delegates recently rubber-stamped five judges, favored by party leaders, to be candidates. It's a bonus when the candidate can be marketed as "the first this or that." In this case it was the dominant party in one of the boroughs, but it could have been otherwise. There were formal nominations, of course, but the outcome was no more in doubt than the succession to the British throne.

Voting along party lines, which the electorate almost invariably does, is not necessarily a bad thing, although in a perfect world they would first do their own research and be amenable to being independent on matters of civics. What's galling is that they have been conditioned to blindly and unfailingly vote for judges about whom they know absolutely nothing, simply because they appear on the ballot in their habitual column.

Neither party is above the fray.

Many judges turn out just fine. They rise to the office. But when they do so, it is less because of the process than despite it. Sometimes, we are compelled to address as "Your Honor,” a person whose ascendency to a position of power and prestige was enabled by having been a flunky who paid his dues (in more ways than one), became the protégé of a party boss, and was rewarded for loyal organizational service. 

I'm not a geologist, so I don't know whether the convention of "pay to play" is older than the hills. Or the efficacy of "You scratch my back, I'll scratch ours"? Affirmative.

Taking the moral high road in its positions is no guarantee that a political party will express them in a manner that will optimize their proselytizing impact. Third Way, a nonprofit center-left think tank, specifically addressed concern about "buzz words” and phrases that are particularly current among reformers and socialists.

"We need to talk in clear, definitive language … in a simple elegant way," says venerable Democrat strategist James Carville. "We think language is one of the central problems we face with normie voters, signaling that we are out of touch with how they live, think and talk,"  according to Third Way's Matt Bennett, quoted in Politico.

Third Way has compiled a list of 45 expressions that they recommend be retired (perhaps paused would be better, pending their refreshment and clarification). Their meanings should be rebuked, but there is something irksome and overbearing about the way they are commonly used that estranges even people who may otherwise ardently agree with the concepts behind them.

They include: microaggression, cultural appropriation, existential threat, birthing person, cisgender, Latinx, intersectionality, stakeholders, patriarchy, body shaming, systems of oppression, critical theory, invalidation, privilege, justice-involved individuals, etc.

Does this smack of language policing? If so, is it a gateway to thought policing?

What do readers of The Chief think?