Celebrating Kevin Burk’s successful PhD Defence

We are proud to congratulate Kevin Burk on successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Examining the Delivery of Police Recruit Training at the Police Academy, Justice Institute of British Columbia”.

His work provides a qualitative analysis of the Justice Institute of British Columbia Police Academy, examining its current practices, methods, models, and philosophies in delivering training to new police recruits in British Columbia.

Abstract

While it is accepted that properly trained police officers are critical for public safety, there is little agreement on the extent of training required for new police recruits or on the best approaches to training them. This dissertation provides a qualitative analysis of the Justice Institute of British Columbia Police Academy, including the current practices, methods, models, and philosophies related to the delivery of training to new police recruits in British Columbia. This includes a review of other police recruit training programs from across Canada and internationally, with the goal of identifying promising practices that could be used to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of police recruit training programs in British Columbia for municipal police agencies. To achieve this, administrative and instructional staff (n=26) from the Police Academy at the JIBC participated in qualitative interviews and provided their perspectives on the best approaches to police recruit training, as well as some of the most pressing challenges facing the Police Academy that might limit the education provided to new police recruits in British Columbia. Based on the analysis of the qualitative interviews, a series of recommendations related to changes that could be made at various levels of government and the Police Academy to improve training outcomes are made.

We look forward to seeing what comes next and are excited about the impact Kevin will continue to make in his field and beyond.