o sung wu,

The fact that you have so few answers to my claims and questions is no indication that what I say is right and I have done nothing to suggest that this is what I think. Such reasoning would be fallacious. The evidence that I base my opinions on is the reason why I think I'm right. Speaking of evidence, this gave me a bit of a laugh...

<<Because a person has had a paper published, it doesn't mean it's correct ? It's just that individual's opinion(s).>>

This is precisely why evidence and a peer review process is required for papers to be published. Apparently you didn't know that but presume to know that what criminologists claim is wrong. Go figure.

One of your problems is that you rely heavily on the Argument from Authority fallacy, with yourself as the authority. You seem to think that anything I say (but only what you disagree with, naturally) is automatically negated by your 32 experience years as a police. Your heavy reliance on this, and your insecurities, have led you to believe that there is some sort of a competition here over who, between the two of us, knows the most. In reality, however, we argue ideas and our claims stand or fall on their own merit. I suspect, however, that you understand that your 'What would criminologists know?' bit is wearing thin and you are now asking my age to approach your Argument from Authority fallacy from a different angle. Well, like I said, our claims stand or fall on their own merit, so suffice to say that I'm young enough to be your child, but too old to be your grandchild.

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As for your question, no, I don't know the answer to that. It would probably be different for each state. A criminologist who specialised in policing would surely know, but when an undergrad has three years to gain an understanding of the causes of crime from both a psychological perspective and a sociological perspective; an understanding of victimology; an understanding of ethics and corruption; and a thorough knowledge of the three arms of the criminal justice system and how they interact, why on earth would universities waste time by having students learn such details when there would be literally thousands like that?

The fact that you have asked this question indicates that either you don't understand what criminology is (well, you did wonder what a policing scholar was on the other thread, I suppose), or you are asking a question trivial enough for me to not know the answer, while still being basic enough to make it appear as though I should know and am a phoney if I don't.

However, had you actually understood policing like you presumably should (or criminology), and wanted to test my understanding of the challenges and the ins and outs of policing, then you would have done something like given me a scenario and asked me to identify the various responses that an officer's discretion affords them, along with the various ethical issues surrounding each possible course of action. Or you could have asked me to list the pros and cons of the different policing practices. Instead, you chose to ask something that would fallaciously make me appear clueless despite the fact that knowing the answer to your question would not have demonstrated a very thorough understanding of policing and, ironically, makes you appear to be the less knowledgeable one for not having known what kind of questions would be the most effective at gaging the scope of my knowledge.

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I'll also point out, too, that your question is unrelated to any topic that we've discussed; further highlighting the fact that you feel like this has become some sort of a competition despite myself not having done anything to provoke any such competition. I am simply using acquired knowledge to argue my opinions. You are the one who (in the last thread) asked what sort of authority I am on the matter, if any.

As for you not wanting to argue with me because I am apparently a "mug", that's just an excuse in the form of a very random insult. You have not demonstrated in any way that I am a "mug", and I have said nothing to suggest this. You claim to SteeleRedux that you have made it clear as to why you won't discuss anything with me, however, none of your vague reasoning has had any substance to it. Until recently, I have remained almost uncharacteristically polite to you (I started my first post to you in the other thread with a "Dear" and I never do that unless it's done first by others; I even complimented you on your vocabulary earlier in this thread) and despite this, you take my tone when addressing the blatantly ignorant arguments of others around you as a personal attack on yourself, then use that as an excuse to pretend that you could respond to my posts but won't because of an alleged derision, pontification or rudeness.

Apparently it doesn't always take two hands to clap, because the only rudeness that has transpired from our discussions is from you. You are a thoroughly offensive person.