Dropped requisite stirs up debateWhen a new Memphis Police recruit class begins Jan. 21, there may not be many eggheads among the group.
Not everyone thinks that's necessarily a bad thing.
In November, the city lifted a requirement that candidates have two years of college or two years of active military to be considered as a police cadet.
As it has in cities across the country, the change in standards has stirred some controversy.
More than 80 percent of the nation's 17,000 law enforcement agencies have positions they can't fill, according to a Dec. 7 article by William J. Woska, a professor at Golden Gate University in Carmel, Cal., in Police Chief magazine.
Since the 1990s, interest in becoming a police officer has declined, according to Woska. Competition from other areas, including Homeland Security and Border Patrol, which has been on a hiring spree, has cut into the pool of applicants.
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