I recently had the opportunity to travel to Spain, where I networked with academic colleagues, gave a talk about American policing, and did some research. One thing I wanted to learn more about was how law enforcement officers in Spain are selected and trained. I had read this article, and similar pieces, arguing that police training in Europe is very different from – and superior to – American police training. I wanted to assess that for myself. I was surprised by some of things I learned, and I thought I would share them in this post.
The structure of policing in Spain. In order to understand Spanish police selection and training, it is necessary to understand the structure of Spanish policing. Most law enforcement officers in Spain belong to one of two large national forces: the Policia Nacional and the Guardia Civil. The Policia Nacional patrols most cities, while the Guardia Civil patrols rural areas, national borders, and roadways. In addition to this territorial division, each force has certain types of offenses for which it takes primary responsibility throughout the country. For example, the Policia Nacional addresses illegal gambling, while the Guardia Civil takes the lead on weapons and explosives offenses.
The Policia Nacional is a civil police force, with ranks of officer, inspector, commissioner, and the like. The Guardia Civil is a gendarmerie, and is organized using military-style ranks like sergeant, lieutenant, and so on. It has dual responsibilities under the Ministry of the Interior (for its law enforcement function) and the Ministry of Defense (for its military function). The Guardia Civil is slightly larger, but each of the two forces has more than 70,000 members.
Some autonomous regions (like Catalonia and the Basque Regions) have their own police forces. These are smaller than the national organizations, but still much larger than the municipal and county forces that comprise the bulk of American law enforcement. Some municipalities have local police. These officers are oriented towards crime prevention, community policing, and administrative tasks.
Selection and training of officers: Guardia Civil. Much as the American military distinguishes between officers and enlisted personnel, the Guardia Civil has different selection and training processes for upper ranks and for line members.
Entry-level members of the Guardia Civil are trained at the Academia de Cabos y Guardias de la Guardia Civil in Baeza, in southern Spain. Aspiring members must be at least 18 years old and must be high school graduates. Applicants take an entrance examination to assess their ability, and there is a substantial industry in Spain dedicated to preparing young people for this examination and similar competitive examinations to enter other fields. In recent years, more than 20,000 candidates have taken the entrance examination each year but only 2,000 – 3,000 have gained admission to the academy. The initial course of training lasts nine months. The contents of the initial course are mandated by law, which you can see here. The contents are generally similar to what American police study: law, forensic science, traffic control, weapons, report writing, and physical training. Candidates also study a few things that American officers don’t, like 40 hours of “humanities” and 120 hours of English. They also spend less time on certain topics than American officers do. For example, just 20 hours is allocated to the study of weapons and explosives. Under North Carolina’s new curriculum for Basic Law Enforcement Training, candidates spend 96 hours on firearms training and 16 more on explosives. The total number of training hours in Spain is 1141. This initial training is followed by 40 weeks of supervised field training and practical exercises.
Young people aspiring to join the upper ranks of the Guardia Civil are trained at the Academia de Oficiales de la Guardia Civil (AOGC) (for training on police-specific content) and simultaneously at the Centro Universitario de la Guardia Civil (CUGC) (for academic content), both in Aranjuez, near Madrid. It is a five-year university-style program, similar to an American service academy such as West Point or the Naval Academy. Admission is extremely selective. In Spain, students who plan on attending university are graded on a 14-point scale in an assessment called the EBAU.[1] The score is a combination of the student’s secondary school grades and the student’s performance on standardized tests. In recent years, admission to the CUGC has required an EBAU score above 13. Students with such scores are eligible for admission to the most demanding majors – mathematics, physics, computer science, and medicine – at Spain’s most selective universities. (By contrast, many universities will accept aspiring lawyers with a score of 8 or 9.) The curriculum at the CUGC is semester-based, and includes topics like chemical engineering and calculus as well as English, forensic science, and leadership. Graduates of the program receive both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree and become lieutenants in the Guardia Civil.
Some officers work their way up from the entry level through the warrant officer ranks and ultimately become senior officers after an abbreviated two-year course at AOGC and CUGC. A handful of individuals who already have university degrees upon entry become senior officers after a separate two-year short course.
Selection and training of officers: Policia Nacional. As with the Guardia Civil, Spaniards who want to enter the Policia Nacional must be 18 years old, have a high school diploma, and take a competitive exam. Many applicants take a test preparation course to enhance their chances of selection. Successful applicants begin their training at the Academia de Policia in Avila, about an hour west of Madrid. The training course lasts 9 months, and is followed by one year of field training. The training course is 960 hours in length. It includes training topics familiar to American police, such as criminal law, report writing, and firearms training. Foreign language training is also required – either in English or in French.
A few members of the Policia Nacional enter directly into the executive ranks of the organization. Applicants must already hold university degrees, and again, must sit for a competitive examination. Those who score the highest are admitted to a nine-month course at the academy in Avila. (Another avenue for reaching the executive ranks is to be promoted from the lower ranks of the organization. This also involves a competitive examination and a subsequent nine-month training course, but the course is online.) The Policia Nacional has a Nacional University Center (Centro Universitario de Formacion de la Policia) that offers higher-level professional development courses. It is not involved in the training of future members of the executive ranks in the same way as the CUGC is for the Guardia Civil.
Pay. This article in El Mundo explains the compensation of members of the Guardia Civil. There is a base salary and several supplemental payments including seniority payments, an extra payday in June, an extra payday in December, and assignment-based supplements. Together, the various payments bring the entry level salary to about 27,000 Euros per year, which equates to about $28,000 before taxes. Higher ranking officers earn more, but only very senior members of the organization reach the $55,000 per year or so that many North Carolina police departments pay brand new officers. (Salary information for Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill shows that all three agencies start near the $55,000 mark.) The Policia Nacional pays about the same as the Guardia Civil.
Of course, international comparisons regarding compensation are difficult. Per capita GDP in Spain is less than half what it is in the United States, and the unemployment rate is nearly three times as high. Therefore, salaries across the board in Spain are not comparable to American salaries. In Spain, the salaries paid to law enforcement are competitive and the stability of public employment is highly sought after.
Discussion. In some ways, the selection and training of law enforcement officers in Spain is comparable to what we do in North Carolina. A high school diploma is sufficient for entry into the profession, and the basic training course for officers in the Guardia Civil and the Polcia Nacional is generally similar in length and content to what North Carolina officers receive. But there are important differences in the two systems, including the following:
- Minimum age. In Spain, the minimum age to enter the profession is 18, while in North Carolina it is 21. There are benefits to each approach. Most people are more mature at 21 than at 18. Law enforcement officers wield significant authority, so more maturity is a good thing. However, many North Carolina high school graduates who would like to become police officers find that they must wait several years. In the meantime, they may find other careers. This gap between high school graduation and age 21 therefore reduces the number of young people who seek to become law enforcement officers. Interestingly, states have different minimum ages and several allow people to become officers at age 18.
- Mandatory field training. Both the Guardia Civil and the Policia Nacional require officers to complete approximately nine months of supervised field training after they complete their academy training. North Carolina does not mandate any field training for new officers. Of course, many agencies have field training programs, ranging from informal programs a few weeks in length to structured, multiple-month programs. Larger agencies tend to offer more field training because they have the personnel and resources to do so.
- Centralization of training. The two large police forces in Spain train the overwhelming majority of the country’s law enforcement officers. They do so at their own facilities, with their own staff of professional trainers. In North Carolina, the Basic Law Enforcement Training course is administered by law enforcement agencies and community colleges at dozens of sites across the state. There is a standard curriculum, a common set of materials, and a state administered exam at the end. However, the instructors vary from site to site, and many are part-time instructors. Again, there are plusses and minuses to each system. North Carolina’s decentralized system allows recruits to attend BLET close to home, but cannot match the consistency of instruction offered by a more centralized system.
- Extensive training for the upper ranks. Although the training of entry-level officers in Spain and in North Carolina is similar, the training required for higher-ranking officials in Spain is far more extensive. That is particularly true in the Guardia Civil, where senior officers must spend years at the AOGC/CUGC. Of course, high-ranking officers in North Carolina’s law enforcement agencies may have accumulated many training hours on various topics over their careers, but that training is not a focused, intentional, and continuous cohort experience.
- No recruitment and retention problem. Over the past several years, North Carolina law enforcement agencies have struggled to attract and retain officers. There are many reasons for that, including a strong market in civilian jobs, younger workers’ reluctance to work irregular hours, candidates’ inability to pass drug screens and background checks, and a perception that law enforcement officers are not as respected and valued as they once were. Many agencies have vacant positions, and some feel compelled to accept applicants who are marginal candidates. By contrast, in Spain, law enforcement is a highly desirable profession that attracts an abundance of applicants, allowing agencies to choose the best and brightest. The difference may in part be a result of different economic conditions, but my sense is that the difference in public perception of the profession is at least equally significant.
Acknowledgements. I am grateful to UNC for helping to fund my trip to Spain, which was an incredible professional highlight. I’m also grateful to a whole host of folks at UC3M, the Spanish university that hosted me. I haven’t asked them for permission to credit them by name, so I won’t – but they know who they are. The same goes for my contact at the CUGC, without whom, this post would have been far less accurate and complete.
[1] The term is an acronym for Evaluación de Bachillerato para Acceso a la Universidad, which, in English, means the Evaluation for University Access. Informally, the assessment is called la selectividad.