California considers law requiring police recruits to have degree or be over 25 in bid to reduce shootings

If accepted, California will become the state with the highest age requirement for police officers

A county in California recently agreed to pay millions of dollars in damages to Samuel Kolb who was shot and paralysed by police (AP)

A Democrat legislator in California has proposed a law that police officers must have a bachelor's degree or be over 25 years of age before starting their careers.

The legislator, Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, who is also the chairman of the California assembly’s public safety committee, said the measures could reduce the number of police shootings.

Sawyer said, “these jobs are complex, they're difficult, and we should not just hand them over to people who haven't fully developed themselves,” reported The Sacramento Bee.

According to the current law of California, peace officers should be at least 18 years of age and have a high school diploma or equivalent while the state highway patrol officers must be at least 20.

In 2019, the state law enforcement either seriously hurt or killed civilians 703 times and police fired guns in 283 of those reported incidents, according to the data from California’s department of justice.  

Sawyer noted that cities with more college-educated police were less likely to use force during encounters with suspects.  

“This could be the beginning of changing the entire way that policing is done on the front end. Then we can let the bad cops retire on the back end,” said Sawyer.

However, for the proposal to turn into a law, it needs to be passed at several levels including a vote in assembly and approval by the state’s governor.  

If it happens, California will follow states such as Illinois, North Dakota, New Jersey and Nevada which requires a person, who wants to become an officer, to have a bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

But as far as age criteria is concerned, if the proposal is accepted, then California would be the state with the oldest age requirement for officers as age requirement in most other states is between 18-21.

Several organisations such as the California Police Chiefs Association have supported the idea of increasing the education requirements for officers.