My husband would like to pursue becoming a Phoenix Police Officer?

[Anne]

My husband would like to pursue an application and testing to enter the Phoenix Police Department. He is 27 years old and completed the fire fighting course years ago through a local community college but never got on. Currently he works in heavy machinery. He has a clean record except for a minor in consumption charge when he was 17. We are married with a son and one on the way. I think Phoenix PD may be on a hiring freeze so he was thinking of enrolling in a criminal justice program in the meantime. Is this a good degree to pursue or is there something better aligned with becoming a law enforcement agent? Also, he needs to get back in shape. He eats healthy but doesn't work out. Any programs like P90X that are efficient for training.

Any other suggestions, advice, or tips would be really appreciated.

Thank You,
Anne

[retdetsgt]

I had a MIP beer when I was 17 too and it wasn't even a bump.

Tell him to don't bother with a criminal justice degree, get something else. Computer science or something like that would be more useful. Even a degree in English would be nice given the writing skills of many Americans.....

[icu650]

The best advice I can give, with todays economy, is to stay clean and apply for every police department in the area that would be in travel distance of where you want to live. College is great but as "retdetsgt" stated, get something useful that you can use during your pursuit of a law enforcement career. You may not get it. What good is a major in criminal justice going to do for you if Police Departments are not hiring and the jobs that are out there want somebody that can fill out a simple report without using texting language and spelling.

[ChesCopPodz]

Tell him to skip the criminal justice degree and get a degree in another field. Any degree will do when it comes to getting hired. Departments almost universally don't care what the degree is in, so it's better for him to have a degree to fall back to if LE doesn't work out.

[NightR0ver]

As with what the other said, skip the Criminal Justice degree. They are a dime a dozen and will not set him apart from other candidates. I would suggest that he go for business and or management. This will be something valuable to both him and the department should he choose to work his way up the ranks to administrative positions. Most of the upper echelon in many departments have business/management degrees in addition to time on the street.

[DeltaV]

I'm curious as to why he never got hired by a fire department. Law enforcement hiring sure isn't any easier.