We Recruit for Life Experience. Let’s Train for It Too.
I remember sitting in on a police academy graduation years ago, listening to the stories of each recruit. One had been a teacher. Another was a chemical engineer. One had worked in social services. A few had overcome incredible adversity in their lives: single parents, first-generation college graduates, survivors of violence or trauma.
These weren’t just job applicants. They were people with purpose. People who had already shown strength, empathy, and grit.
And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere between the hiring process and this moment on stage, we had unintentionally trained some of that humanity out of them.
We say we want a breadth of experience and perspective. We recruit people for their compassion, resilience, and emotional intelligence. But on day one of the academy, we often start by stripping away individuality.
Pushups. Shouting. Uniformity.
There is absolutely a time and place for discipline, high standards, and structure. There are moments in policing where discipline and cohesion matter. But we have to be honest about what we are unintentionally teaching too. If the first message a recruit gets is “don’t stand out,” they may stop bringing forward the very traits we hired them for in the first place.
And that’s a loss.
A loss for the recruit. A loss for the profession. And ultimately, a loss for the communities we serve.
It’s Time to Evolve the Academy
We’ve come a long way in modernizing how we recruit. Many agencies are actively seeking out people with different life experiences, community connections, and a heart for service. That’s good progress.
But we haven’t evolved the academy at the same pace. We still spend hundreds of hours on firearms, driving, defensive tactics, and patrol procedures (all important core skills) and only a fraction of that time on the human side of the job.
The job that requires empathy in a crisis. The job that demands hard conversations under pressure. The job that means showing up for someone on the worst day of their life.
If we want officers who lead with humanity, we have to teach it. From day one.
Human Skills Are Not “Extras.” They’re Essentials.
At The Curve, we believe policing is a profession of service. And service requires human connection. That means academy training must go beyond tactics. It must include:
- How to have difficult conversations with empathy and respect
- How to listen not just to words, but for understanding and meaning
- How to recognize when your own emotions or biases are shaping a response
- How to be a lifelong learner, how to grow, and learn from other fields
These aren’t soft skills. They’re leadership skills. They’re life skills. And when we begin teaching them early and continue reinforcing them as people promote through the ranks, we build teams that are not only tactically sound, but relationally strong.
The Long-Term Payoff
This kind of training doesn’t just prepare recruits to do their jobs. It shapes the culture of the profession. It reduces burnout. It improves retention. It fosters trust with the community. And it makes room for leaders to emerge: not just from rank, but from example.
If we want a different kind of profession, we have to invest in a different kind of training. One that sees each new recruit not as a blank slate to mold, but as a whole person to support, develop, grow, and equip.
Because the people we hire already have the potential to lead with heart.
Let’s make sure our training helps them keep it.
-Chris Hsiung, Executive Director @ The Curve