Just in case you haven’t noticed this isn’t a good time to
be a police officer.
I read an article recently written by a current police
officer who said that he was recruited into police work by watching a police
television show called “Cops”. I
remember the show. It portrayed police
officers from around the country doing great things for the right reasons. Anybody who had an inclination to make
positive contributions to the community would naturally be “recruited” into
police work by watching that show. Of
course, there have been other police recruiting television series. There was “Dragnet” and “Adam-12” to name a
couple. One of the shows that I thought
fairly represented police work was “Hill Street Blues”. So many other police drama shows portrayed
police work as a job that had successful conclusions in 30 or 60 minutes,
displayed poor police work and bad case law.
I believed Hill Street Blues was a much more accurate portrayal of
police work.
I attribute much of what is happening in law enforcement
today to the entertainment industry. I
hate to say it, but as much as I liked Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry”,
Inspector Callahan was the worst possible role model for policing at the time. He was a rogue cop doing what every other cop
on the planet felt like doing but exercised restraint and resisted the
temptation to follow in Dirty Harry’s footsteps. I once heard a judge say that the worst
moment of the film was when Harry threw his badge into the water. The problem with Harry was that not only did
he get away with what he was doing he was applauded for doing it.
Of course, it wasn’t (and isn’t) just Dirty Harry. Television and the silver screen abound in
police doing the wrong thing for supposedly the right reason for which they are
rewarded. The reality is that these
television shows and movies serve as training videos for future and current
police. And, why shouldn’t they? They are popular and they feed the public’s
insatiable desire for justice. Or, is it
vengeance? Whatever.
I think there are some other factors involved in what is
going on in law enforcement today and it isn’t all about police.
There has already been a serious shift policing in the last
40 or 50 years. It used to be that
policing was a job that you went into if you couldn’t find any other work. Several decades ago we had an Irish immigrant
population that could not find employment anywhere and thus turned to policing
in some of our major cities. Returning
war veterans unable to find sustaining work turned to policing, which
incidentally resonated with veterans.
They wore uniforms and there were rules to follow, and an objective to
be met though it wasn’t always clear what the object was. At the time, curbside justice was tolerated
if not encouraged. Ironically, curbside
justice may have been more beneficial to society than the criminal justice system
if it wasn’t carried to extremes.
Without a doubt, some curbside justice went entirely overboard and
should be labeled as criminal behavior.
However, the act of pouring out some kid’s beer and tossing his
marijuana stash to the wind and embarrassing him (or her) in front of friends
diverted more youth from the system than any juvenile judge or probation
officer could possibly imagine.
These days, police have a minimum of a high school education
and many have at least some college.
Many police departments actively recruit police officers with at least a
two- or four-year college degree. There
are many pros and cons to the argument of hiring college educated police
officers, none of which I wish to discuss here.
Likewise, many military veterans continue to turn to law enforcement for
careers and many police departments readily accept veterans’ applications, and
rightfully so. They come into policing
with discipline and willingness to follow orders. Just as there are pros and cons to hiring
college educated police recruits, there are also pros and cons to hiring
veterans, again, none of which I wish to discuss here. There are other things at play that
contribute to the current bad day to be a police officer.
The easiest target is the entertainment industry. It is by no means the only contributing
factor and may not even be the biggest contributing factor, but it is a factor
for consideration. Not only does the
entertainment industry provide training
videos for law enforcement, but they also provide training videos for the public.
They portray an image of how the public in its estimation reacts to
police intervention.
Closely related to the entertainment industry is the news
media. The public demands short sound
bites of news and therefore the news industry delivers. Unfortunately by providing instant and short
coverage of events the entire story is generally omitted and facts are not
fully covered. Substituted in its place
is commentary often slanted in the direction of those who have no restrictions
on what they can and cannot say to preserve evidence for a trial in court. Thus, police are subject to trial by
media. Many in the media are educated by
liberal professors at liberal universities and carry with them a bias against
authority and the establishment. The
bottom line is that police will never get a fair trial by the media. While the media welcomes feel-good stories
about the police, they are short lived and pale in comparison to criticism.
Yet, there is another issue at play. It is subtle in nature but very real. While we have had a shift in police attitudes
and approaches we have also had a shift in public perceptions and
attitudes. Much of that shift has evolved
over a very long period of time and comes from growing resentment built up over
generations. Paired with that is a
growing generation that believes entitlement is something you are awarded for merely
living instead of earning.
Every person who has ever donned a uniform and a badge has
been accused of picking on teenagers.
Who hasn’t as a police officer dealt with a teenager who immediately
retorted when stopped for a traffic violation that he or she was picking on
youth simply because of their age? Who
has not been accused of stopping a minority because of minority status? Many police officers have been accused of
stopping minorities or youth in the middle of the night because of their status
while under the condition of nighttime the officer had absolutely no idea who
he or she was stopping. What police
officer has not gone ahead and issued a traffic citation or made an arrest when
a person has talked his way into it when the person otherwise could have talked
his way out of it by simply showing courtesy and respect?
There have been a number of recent high profile police
shooting cases where the person involved was mentally or emotionally
disturbed. Unfortunately, these
individuals are as capable of killing police as those who are in their right
frame of mind. Contrary to popular
opinion, they do not walk around with signs hanging around their necks
advertising their mental capacity. Some
people think that by yelling at the police who are dealing with a mental
patient that they can prevent a shooting.
The fact is that yelling at the police that they are dealing with a
mental patient serves more of a distraction than a help. It takes a split second for an officer to
turn attention away from the subject to end up being the one carried away to
the morgue. This, of course, assumes
that police can even hear people yelling at them that they are dealing with a
mental patient. Just as we develop
tunnel vision in certain situations, we also develop “tunnel hearing” in high
stress situations or those situations where our attention is focused.
As a faction of the public becomes more and more brazen in
its actions toward the police, police work is becoming more and more
dangerous. Our training teaches us
survival skills. Hesitation can be
deadly for police while lack of hesitation can be deadly for a member of the
public. One would hope that there would
be a balance there somewhere, but the desire for self-preservation is pretty
strong. The adage that a decision made
in a split second by a police officer will be evaluated for years is never truer
than it is today. So true is it that I
wonder why anyone in a right frame of mind would consider a career in policing
today.
Some politicians are clamoring for more and more training
for police. Police generally like
training, so that has the potential to be a win-win, but given the type of
training politicians want to impose upon police it is doubtful that it will
help. Others want police to have other
non-deadly force options for bringing combatants under control. Some want more civilian control over
policing, probably in the form of police civilian review boards. There is a cry for tighter hiring
practices. Others want police
departments to have the ability to share information with each other about
police officers who have been disciplined so they won’t be hired by another
department. It seems everyone has a fix
but is unaware of the complexities of such things as personnel law, expense,
time, and the futility of their solutions.
Admittedly, there are problem police officers. There are probably police departments out of
control. However, to paint all police
departments with the same broad brush is a disservice to the officers who
faithfully serve and the communities that they serve.
Sir Robert Peel (1788-1855), the Father of Modern Policing (1829)
espoused nine principles for policing. All
nine deserve to be reviewed, but Peelian Principle Seven deserves some careful
consideration as a cornerstone for the other eight principles. “Police, at all times, should maintain a
relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public
are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to
give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the
interests of community welfare and existence.” It is highly doubtful that the
public is aware of this principle that is as true today as it was nearly 200
years ago. Meanwhile, the police have
either forgotten this principle or have been boxed into a self-defense corner
where it is nearly impossible to practice this principle.
Instead of police
reformation it might be more appropriate to have police restoration. That, however, will require the education of
the public and assumption of civilian responsibility, something that seems to
be in short supply in some sectors of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment