A comparasion of the sociocultural situations of police officer candidates

The study compared the socio -cultural situation s of police officer candidates who were in training at the Vocational College of Police Force Training (VCPFT) and the Vocationa l Training Center for Police Force (VT CPF). The subjects of the study were the fir st year students of the vocational college of polic e force training in the educational terms of 2005 and 2006 and the fir st year students of the voc ational training center of police force in the first term of 2006. The study sample comprised 80% of the f emale students and 25 % of the male students in training at the VT CPF and the first ye ar students from one VCPFT of e ach region (Total of 6 VCPFT) A que stionnair e investigating the socio -cultural levels of the students of VCPFT is used annually by the Police Aca demy Administration and its results are published. Upon permission, the results of the que stionnair e were used in the study, and the same or modified questions were used in a different questionna ire for the students of VCPFT. The data collected via the que stionna ire wer e analyzed in computer medium with SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sc ienc es) pa ckage program. The results of the que stionnaire s applied to the VCPFT and VT CPF students were compared in incidence and percentage. The results indicated that: 1) The students of the VCPFT had m ore per sona l char acteristics. 2) The socio- cult ural level of the families of the students in the VCPFT was slightly higher than that of the familie s of the students in the POMEM. In addition, the students in the VCPFT had higher foreign language acquisition level and made better use of the compute r. 3) The students from both institutions used their fre e time with similar activities. 4) The socio-cultura l level of the students in the VCPFT wa s higher with respect to their involvement in sports, painting, music, and television. 5) The financial status of the families of the students in the VCPTF was slightly better than those of the students in the VTCPF. In the light of the results of the study, it can be suggested that the police officer training should be provided by the VCPTF rather than by both the VCPFT and VT CPF.