Benjamin Harrison once said: “We Americans have no commission from God to police the world”. Nevertheless, policemen are the only people who are s- called God helpers in peacekeeping and making citizens too obey the law or punish them for crimes and delinquencies.
To investigate the Pros and Cons of this profession aims, and attitudes of police officers I conducted the interview with two police officers from different departments and of different ages. The results are the following.
Though both officers are of different ethnicity (African American and Caucasian) and different ages (37 and 48 years old correspondingly), their life experience evidence that they began to work at the age of 24-25 years old. Both officers have education: B.S and “some college”. They both noticed that to become a police officer one should have at least two years studying at the college in order to “be able to write” and “to promote through the ranks”.
The reasons to become a police officer for both men were different. The first man heard a lot of different stories from some police officers, the other one felt the very respectful treating from the police officer. Both officers recognize they have found in a work everything they were expecting: “work ethic and camaraderie” and interesting not boring work. Those men also admitted that the profession of a policeman has positive and negative sides. Positive moments consist in various work doing, the ability to get a person off the street for a very long time that committed a hideous crime, and to solve problems for people in a way that they have come to expect from a police officer. They point out that knowing criminals not be able to be among innocent people any longer and simple gratefulness from citizens is the best award for their hard work.
In the meantime, they confess that dealing with murders causes serious psychological stress leading to “cases makes an officer become very callous”.
Concerning the question to recommend policing as a career to others, both police officers expressed different opinions. The first one noticed that this profession may be recommended not for everyone but for “only those that are willing to sacrifice their family and personal well being”. The second police officer had a more optimistic point of view. He noticed that it is good for everyone because “it’s a career that you will never be doing the same type of thing day in and day out. Also, there is lots of career advancement and great benefits”.
However, this profession contains various pitfalls as well. There are things for both officers they had not expected. The first policeman said: “All the training at the academy and all the field experience does not prepare one for a life outside of police work. It makes a person only have tunnel vision”. The second police officer highlighted that he did not expect “politics within the city government and within the police department itself and also the citizens in which he had sworn to protect and serve but who are so negative toward him as a police officer.
To sum it up I would like to say that in spite of all difficulties and pitfalls hidden in the profession of a police officer, there are still courageous people who are not afraid to risk their own lives in order to keep peace in the streets and in many homes. Every day they have to cope with numeral obstacles, such as politics that can often interfere with one’s investigation or ill-disposed citizens. They face danger and take the risk to be shot at any moment. But regardless of all those negative moments, they continue to consider their profession to be one of the best in the world and appeal to others to follow their example!