Police subculture

[retdetsgt]

I was the FTO to a guy who was head of the criminal justice program at a major university in Washington.

He had taken the police test to see what it was like on the street so he could be a better professor.

He confessed to me that it was nothing like what he had expected and what he had been teaching students for years. He stayed and retired as a Lt., and a pretty good one at that.

There is no police subculture. It's a job, we do it for a living. Some people take it too seriously, but some people take everything, including themselves too seriously.

Cops tend to get cynical, that's true. But when you deal with the bottom feeders all the time, you begin to think all people are bottom feeders. It's always a good idea to find interest outside police work.

Ordinary citizens are the best crime fighters. Securing your property and taking steps to protect yourself is the best way to fight crime. Sitting back and waiting for us to do everything is counter productive. I don't mean vigilantism, I mean just use common sense.

Bending the rules makes you no better than the criminals. I find that insulting as hell.

Loyalty? Perhaps, but not blind loyalty. We are a group of people who passed civil service exams and got hired to do a job. We need to look out for each other, but if you're insinuating something like lying to protect each other, no way. If I got into a bad situation on the street, I could really only depend on fellow officers to help me and they could depend on me. But I think your professor has a more sinister idea about what that loyalty is.

I found detective work more satisfying because I worked more serious cases and more or less lived with them to completion. The drawback is, whatever is on your desk tonight when you leave will be there tomorrow. When I worked uniform, each shift was a fresh page in my notebook. I had more fun in uniform because it is more fast paced and exciting and when I reminisce with other retired guys, we always talk about our days as patrolmen, not as detectives, Sgts or whatnot. I would never call working uniform the pits.

[Samuel]

I really don't have much to add - i.e. I'm in agreement with what all of my esteemed colleagues have written above.

I might suggest that you don't butt heads with your teacher. IME, some teachers/supervisors/whomever have issues with people disagreeing with them (no matter how tactfully, logically, reasonably) and yours may take it the wrong way and fail you. Btw, it sounds like she formed all her opinions after watching Training Day...

[Ne_Smokey_Bear]

Police are the only real crime fighters.
Not true, but we are the one's on the front lines dealing with it day in and day out.


Only the police understand police.
Also not true. I think a lot of people understand police, criminals do, they study us and what we do. Deffense attorneys understand us, sometimes better than we understand ourselves.

What people don't understand is why we do what we do. Most people wouldn't put up with what we put up with and do it with a smile on their face.


Loyalty to one another is paramount.
Yes but as others have stated only to a point. I'm not going to burn my reputation for someone who is blatantly in the wrong. I will however back up anyone who deserves it.


The "War on Crime" can only be won by bending a few rules.
No, we play by the rules if we don't then we lose even more than if we didn't play at all. Not following certain rules will get cases kicked, people fired and reputations ruined.


The public doesn’t support the police.
I think mostly they do, there are a lot of people who want the police around until they are the one's recieving enforcement action. I think people understand that we have a job to do and that we hold the thin line.


Patrol work is the pits. Detective work is glamorous.
No. I have patrolled for almost seven years and done some minor detective work. I hate investigation work, it is slow and tedious. Maybe it is my instant gratification complex but I prefer to take people to jail at that time. A lot of investigations are started or ended by good patrol work.

But I would not call either job glamorous. There is nothing glamorous about a death investigation resulting from finding a vehicle in a manure pond next to a dairy. Did I mention that the vehicle had been there for a year? I'm just glad I wasn't the detective on that one. But yeah those guys see a lot of nasty crap.


Many CJ instructors I know have no real world experience and they pass that along to their students (who I later arrest) and they try tell me that because the are CJ they know my job better than me. If it is like any other task in life sometimes you have to jump through the hoops and do what is asked to get by. Take the good and leave the bad and you will come out ok.

[BJJVad]

A wise man once said..

You don't go to college to learn radio from a Professor. If that Professor knew how to make it in radio, he would still be on the air.

[oscarmitre]

I'm not so sure I read bias in the comments of the instructor. But that's an eye of the beholder thing I suppose.

As has been pointed out by previous commentators, there are some stereotypes of the police "sub-culture" that are inaccurate. Some of this might be due to the fact that the study of this phenomenon is now getting on a bit. I remember reading Skolnick and the others back in the early 1970s and I'm pretty sure it was being examined during the 1960s. If you have access to a decent library you might like to check out some of August Vollmer's work which was groundbreaking.

For another look at these stereotyped views you might want to look outside the US. If you have access to British criminology journals you should search for the author AJP Waddington (a former British police officer and now academic) who has written particularly on what the Brits call the "canteen culture" in British policing. Also from Australia (she has been published in British criminology journals and in Canada) is Janet Chan who has done a lot of interesting work in this area.

Finally, you might want to skim this doctoral thesis:

ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/2185/1/01front.pdf

from this academic:

Dr Jann Karp | University of Western Sydney (UWS)

You may well find some different views there, a bit more realistic and deeper than the usual stereotype stuff trotted out when this topic comes up.

[Curt581]

"Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things than someone who hasn't".

Mark Twain

[CityOfChicago]

Law enforcement has worked very hard to try and eliminate the BS 'six core beliefs' your instructor has listed. Try looking up some current law enforcement theories and practices, departmental mission statements, and the LE Code of Ethics. For better or for worse, many departments have taken recent cues from corporate America, including the aformentioned mission statements , as well as defined departmental 'core values'. Though this open forum is not the best place for me to write you a nice 25 page paper about how your professor has her head jammed up her 1970's Frank Serpico ***, I will say that her 'core beliefs' all show her clear bias that cops are slightly to severely twisted and elitest. This attitude of hers shows that, actually, she's the elitest one. Additionally - and most importantly I think - it shows that her information is dated at least and wrong/bigoted at worst. How can you as students expect to get a quality and accurate education/sense of current law enforcement if she has such an attitude?

Here is what I would do if I were you. I'd assemble your little 'team' and create a presentation that refutes each one of her statements. I'd use several interviews with ACTUAL cops - including supervisors and bosses - and I'd tear through as much current literature on law enforcement as I could get my hands on. Ther is an LE Books section here that can help point you in the right direction. THATS the presentation I'd give. If she tanks your grade because you disagreed with her 'beliefs', I'd take my work to her dean, and argue that her curricula is dated/biased, your work was scholarly and good, and that your education is suffering because of her personal agenda.

But that's just me.

[patchcop]

I think a lot and most everything is said in the posts before.

But one thing about "only a cop understand a cop":

My words: THAT IS TRUE. Maybe a figherfighter has a near to our experience. Have YOU seen dead babies bodies after they get killed by their parrents?, have you smelled burned human meat after a fire? have you heared the cries of victims in a burning car or people in a car after an accident who are unable to get out of it? have you been happy that a small kid cries after an accident because you know that it is alive when it cries? Have you burried a close friend who was a cop also who died by a heart atack with 52 yoa? Have you looked in a gun and noticed that the guy on the other end of the weapon really want to kill you? have you been dishonored in the public? have you been spitten on? Have you seen the views when people around you noticed what you do for a living?

I can write hundrets and hundrets of more things here. I don't think that you will answer YES with more than one thing I wrote. But everyone around here knows what I talk about and some knows all of the above things personally. So when I talk to a cop, he understand me. If I talk to a civilian, he/ she can try to understand me but that's it.

[greg72982]

I guess I missed the memo because I don't share those core beliefs.

[ChesCopPodz]

You want a controversial topic that will create discussion and has many angles to come at it? Physical force- myths vs reality. Why do some brain dead oxygen wasters think we should shoot to wound instead of center punching the "poor disadvantaged" bad guy who is trying to make our spouses widows? Why shooting for arms and legs is a huge mistake. Why we use hollowpoint ammo. Why do the people who want to ban tasers not think of what the alternative becomes? Facts are out there that show massive drops in the number of suspect and officer injuries in departments that get tasers compared to when they did not have them. Why is it "part of our job" to have bad guys assault us, but when we fight back, it's brutality?

The FBI did a big study a few years back studying officer injuries, suspect injuries and situations that turn violent from a non-violent start. It was shown that officers that "patty cake" with suspects are at a greater risk of the situation turning violent than officers who use a decisive level of force to get it in the head of the bad guy that they aren't messing around. Bad guy thinks that the officer is soft and won't fight, they're more likely to fight. Do something decisive when the bag guy gets froggy, they're less likely to fight because they know you mean business and will hurt them if they continue.

[Creeker]

I would actually read and respond to this thread if I:

1. Didn't find the Core Question to be insulting and derogatory towards Law Enforcement.

2. Hadn't see this exact same question asked on this board before.

3. Didn't still believe this is as insulting and derogatory a question as it was the first time it was posed.

[alexiskking]

Apparently being new to this website and askng a question that I did not understand and thinking that officers would be able to assist me in hopefully gaining a better understanding of the above statements that I originally posted (btw which are not my thoughts, are my instructors) I guess I should expect to get crucified by responses...again I apologize if my instructor and my education and asking the questions have offended anyone, however, how a I suppose to learn something that I don not have any direct experience or "true" knowledge of qithout asking those who do have the specific knowledge I am looking for...thats just my thought, and if I am wrong for wanting to learn, or being required to complete a project through school, I guess Ill be going to hell...

and btw, simply because one is suppose to be an educator, and has a certain curriculum he or she has to follow, does NOT mean that their students share the same beliefs...

[alexiskking]

Id like to add that I AM appreciative of those who took the time to give a meaningful response and actually explained their beliefs and thoughts on what the supposed "core beliefs" are or are not. Thank you again for the help and knowledge you have provided...

[alexiskking]

so one last post to clarify something, I did NOT create this question, perhaps y professor did, however i can list a few books that have stated the exact words relating to the "subculture" and the "6 core beliefs", whether those books are outdated or not, they obviously have been published, and if it is that derogatory and insulting as some may perceive it to be, take it up with the author not a student...

Policing: today and tomorrow, written by Michael Birzer and Cliff Roberson...(2007)

Policing in America: Methods, issues and challenges, written by Kenneth Peak, 4th Edition, (2003)

these are just two books that are required reading for me, and both have the same info regarding my original question...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

[retdetsgt]

The FBI did a big study a few years back studying officer injuries, suspect injuries and situations that turn violent from a non-violent start. It was shown that officers that "patty cake" with suspects are at a greater risk of the situation turning violent than officers who use a decisive level of force to get it in the head of the bad guy that they aren't messing around. Bad guy thinks that the officer is soft and won't fight, they're more likely to fight. Do something decisive when the bag guy gets froggy, they're less likely to fight because they know you mean business and will hurt them if they continue.

That's why I believe that police work is an art, not a science. Some people simply don't have the aptitude to make good decisions in varying situations. They apply a one size fits all approach to every situation.

The ability to read a person and go from there in dealing with him isn't something you can teach. There were times I realized that I had to "out macho" the subject from the beginning if I was going to get anywhere. Other times, I found that going softly calmed the person down and I knew if I immediately challenged him, the fight would be on. Problem is, there is no way anyone can articulate how to tell one from the other. If you erred in judgement in either situation, you jeopardized yourself and others.

Over the years, records showed which officers were either getting their butts kicked and/or avoiding situations and those who constantly got IA complaints and/or turned every confrontation into a fight. The ones who did neither were the ones who had the innate ability to do police work.