Career as a Police Officer in NSW: Requirements and Training Details

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the process of becoming a police officer in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It outlines the role of a police officer, career expectations, and the necessary steps for application. The report details the NSW Police Entrance Exam, the online application process, background checks including vetting, criminal history checks, and checks on associated persons. It further describes the physical and medical assessments, the interview process, and the ranking and eligibility pool. The report also covers the training period for newly recruited officers, including classroom instruction and practical exercises. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of personal contributions, such as maintaining physical fitness and dedicating time to preparation, for aspiring police officers. The report concludes that becoming a police officer requires hard work and dedication, and provides a detailed roadmap to achieving this career goal.

How to become a police
officer in NSW

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Role of police officer..............................................................................................................1
Career explanation, obligations and common tasks of police officer....................................1
Steps for becoming a police officer .......................................................................................1
Police Officer Job training .....................................................................................................5
Own contribution in making a career as police officer in NSW............................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Each and every person has some dreams and ambition in his life. They all want to reach at
certain position after a fixed time period. Some people who are living in New South Wales
wishes to become a police officer (Bartels, 2011). This is the main ambition of their life as they
want to serve their country. But this is not an easy task as it requires very hard work. People who
are interested in making their carrier in defence services need to focus on their study. The present
report is based on the ways of becoming a police officer in NSW. In this project various steps to
achieve the carrer as a police officer is described.
Role of police officer
Police officers play an eminent role in society throughout United States. They go through
stringent training at the academy of police so that they prepare for their responsibility of
protecting lives and properties of civilians present in their community. Employment in law
enforcement needs physical as well as mental strength because officers have to deal with unsafe
and stressful conditions regularly(Den Heyer and Beckley, 2013). In fact, law enforcement
workers suffers or go through one of the highest rates of accidental injury or harm and illness
associated with their occupation. Police officers frequently work for the state, local and federal
government. Some of the people also work on university campus and colleges.
Career explanation, obligations and common tasks of police officer
The task of a law enforcement officer is to implement or apply federal, local and state
legislations within jurisdiction of officer. They are the front-most line defence against various
criminal activities which are occurring in cities, society and country. They are having the
responsibilities of protecting civilians, preventing from condemnable activities, investigating
crimes and aiding in apprehensiveness and final judgement of criminal violators.
Steps for becoming a police officer
Police officers not only protect the society, but it also show respects to the civilians.
Future personnels should have an attractive behaviour. In addition to that applicants have to be
honest and responsible. During the interview process, backgrounds are investigated and large
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number of candidates are asked to go through polygraph examinations. Steps for making career
as a police officer are described as below:
1. Police Entrance Examination: The NSW Police Entrance Exam is used for selecting
recruits for NSW police force and formulate part of an applicant’s overall qualification
ranking. This exam is under the administration of Australian Council for Educational
Research (ACER) instead of NSW police and it costs around $155.00. Applicants can
attempt this examination before submitting a practical application to NSW Police Force.
This choice offers candidates a chance to accomplish one of the compulsory recruitment
elements and they can move forward or a step ahead at one time they give their
application. NSW police force would accept the results of this entrance exam for approx.
five years after an applicants accomplishes the tests (NSW Police Recruitment, 2017).
ACER would give results of exam directly to the branch of recruitment. Therefore, there
is no need for candidates to show their results to NSW police force. This examination
includes five tests namely literacy skills (reading), Extended writing, Abstract Reasoning,
Summary writing and Verbal Reasoning. ACER are responsible for providing the testing
centres.
2. Police Application: Once a candidate has successfully accomplished the University
Certificate in Workforce Essentials, then he may become eligible for submitting the
application to NSW Police Force. After receiving this, that police application is
transferred or allocated to a Recruitment case officer. He will do the next processing step.
The submission of this application is done via online or internet. After that, numerous
compulsory documents would be required to be scanned and transferred with that online
application (Henshaw and Thomas, 2012).. This permits applicants to be processed
effectively by the recruitment branch. Such uploaded documents must be certified as true
as well as correct by a justice of the peace. In this process, traffic and driving or any
criminal history information of applicants would be investigated by the Recruitment
Branch case officer.
3. Back ground Checks: At this stage, Recruitment Branch will check the background of all
people who have applied or seeking job with NSW Police Force as a police officer. This
process is a section of professional suitability process. This process of checking includes
various elements that are as follows :
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 Vetting: This is an information that will be used in identifying whether a candidate is
right for the future appointment as a part of NSW police force. Criminal history: In this process, checking of criminal history is done. If any applicant is
found of having any type of criminal records in the past days then he would not be
considered as professionally suitable. Associated people: In this test, applicants have to provide the information related to their
family members like their sibling, grandparents and parents, partners or any associates. If
candidates are found having any association or relation with groups, criminals or gang
then their application gets rejected. Australian Driving History: For meeting or passing this criteria, applicants must have not
any type of driving offence records against their licence or licences for a time period of 1
year preceding to lodging an application online. The client must not involve with any
violation of rules in terms of driving throughout the recruitment procedures (Herrington
and Pope, 2014). All other offences associated with traffic and driving behaviour
problems outside the period of one year will be taken into account and might result in
rejection of their application. Overseas Police Certificate: Those people who have spent more than 1 year in another
nation whilst over the age of 16 years are needed to provide a certified overseas penal
certificates as they are known some times. Residential History: This involves giving compulsory information and supporting
documentation on a candidate's address history (Lough and Von Treuer, 2013). This
history must be for at least 5 years from the time they have applied or submitted their
online application. Such address should include location resided for study or work.
Employment history : This consist of providing documentation and information
associated with the history of employment of the candidate who applied for job in NSW police
force. If any person has any unemployed history for 5 years from the time of submission of their
on- line application. Employment may includes all paid employment, work experience, volunteer
work, family business. And unemployment consist of all gaps between education as well as
employment.
Military service or previous applications with other law enforcement jurisdiction : This
includes information of applicants about the its military background such as military training,
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professional, voluntary, etc. Applications with other law enforcement jurisdiction involves
providing the information about any past or current applications for employability with other law
enforcement jurisdiction.
Field based interview : This process involves conduction of interview of applicants by
the local police. This is normally done in the home residence of candidates.
Finger print and DNA check : For this test, finger and palm prints are obtained from all
applicants and are compared with the information held in the National Automated Finger Print
Automated Identification System (McNamara and Quilter, 2015). Each and every candidates
have to supply their sample of DNA by way of a Buccal sampling kit. That genetic sample is
destroyed after their analysis.
4. Physical & Medical Assessment : After all those verification, physical and medical test of
applicant will be conducted. This is done for determining their capability of performing any
physical demands inherent of operational policing. Additionally, medical fitness of applicants are
determined. For this purpose, past medical reports are also analysed. This test would be
conducted by an external provider (Unified Health care Group) and he or she will decide their
physical as well as medical fitness and tell about their suitability Police force. All the cost linked
with these assessment have to bear by candidate only.
5. Interview : It is the final stage of recruitment which is a face to face interview. This would be
conducted by a panel consisting of three member. In this session, the qualities of the candidates
are analysed by the interviewer. This interview would be conducted at different places or
metropolitan and regional location. Applicants should have various characteristics such as team
work, resiliency, integrity, good communication skills , etc. The scoring of this personal
interview of an applicant will decide their suitable professional ranking (parsons, Kautt and
Coupe, 2011). In this process, all candidates are informed for bringing original copies of their
documents for the purpose of verification. This would the last chance for applicants for
supplying their any kind of outstanding performance in swimming, typing or any other
certificates. This session will be of approximately half an hour. Candidates do not need to bring
their resumes or CV for this interview process. The rank achieved by the applicants would form
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a part of their complete professional suitability ranking score. This will be utilised at the time of
deciding their position in the eligibility pool.
6. Ranking and the Eligibility Pool : In this procedure, all applicants would be ranked as per
their merit which is based upon their successful result at the three individual assessments . These
are Academic eligibility, Police Entrance Exam and Face to face interview. The results of all
these test will be combined together and one who score higher gets the employability of Police
officer in NSW.
Police Officer Job training
Newly recruited police officers will under go an extended training period. Recruits
generally receive their training at a police academy for around three months. This training
involves classroom instructions on the topics like city and state law, crime investigation, legal
processes, etc. They also achieve training in traffic control, use of weapons, emergency
responding and first aid (Quilter, 2014). Ambitious police officers have to pass the physical as
well as written examinations within in the academy of training before becoming suitable to
serve. This training is about the determination of how much recruits are physically qualifier and
how well they understand the course of study. The final scores is the most important factor of the
hiring process. However, passing this training exam is acceptable. After this training session,
they are normally assigned to a senior officer for the purpose of on- the – job training and
monitoring period. At this training, they would learn to apply their education in real life
scenarios.
Own contribution in making a career as police officer in NSW
People who really want to make their career in defence as a police officer should have to
do some work at individual level. Firstly they have to change their life style as well their daily
routine. They have to wake up early in the morning and should go for running in order to
maintain their physical fitness (Weber, 2012). After that they should change their habit of eating
junk or fast foods. Instead of those food items, they should take proper fresh and healthy food.
This will provide them security from several diseases and illness. In addition to this, they have to
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spend more amount of their time in preparing for examination of police officer. By this way, they
can expect themselves to be a police officer after a specific interval of time.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be concluded that there is a dream of every person.
Some of the people want to become a police officer in NSW. For this purpose , they have to a lot
of hard work in daily life. They have to under go a specific steps to do so which is described in
this essay. Candidates should prepare for examination of police officer in regular basis. Even
they have to made some changes in their daily life like avoiding junk food, taking healthy food
items, running in every morning, etc.
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REFERENCES
Books & journal
Bartels, L., 2011. Police interviews with vulnerable adult suspects.
Den Heyer, G. and Beckley, A., 2013. Police independent oversight in Australia and New
Zealand. Police Practice and Research. 14(2). pp.130-143.
Henshaw, M. and Thomas, S., 2012. Police encounters with people with intellectual disability:
prevalence, characteristics and challenges. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research.
56(6). pp.620-631.
Herrington, V. and Pope, R., 2014. The impact of police training in mental health: an example
from Australia. Policing and society. 24(5). pp.501-522.
Lough, J. and Von Treuer, K., 2013. A critical review of psychological instruments used in
police officer selection. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies &
Management. 36(4). pp.737-751.
McNamara, L. and Quilter, J., 2015. Public intoxication in NSW: the contours of criminalisation.
Sydney L. Rev. 37. p.1.
Parsons, A. R., Kautt, P. and Coupe, T., 2011. Effective policing: Management influence and the
commitment of senior police personnel. Policing & Society. 21(1). pp.1-26.
Quilter, J. A., 2014. One-punch laws, mandatory minimums and ‘alcohol-fuelled’as an
aggravating factor: implications for NSW criminal law. International Journal for
Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 3(1).pp.81-106.
Weber, L., 2012. Policing a world in motion.
Online
NSW Police Recruitment. 2017. [Online]. Available through :
<http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/recruitment/application_process>. Accessed on 10th
November 2017.
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