Becoming a Police Officer with Juvenille arrests.

[Jsnandrew]

I am a 24 year old in NYC who has a strong passion to pursue a career in law enforcement, however, I do not have the cleanest juvenile background and I am trying to find out if this is going to get in the way of my dream. I have been arrested 3 times when I was younger. One for trespassing- I was basically sitting with a group of morons who i called friends at the time in a parking lot and the police came and arrested us but called our parents and had them come pick us up at the precinct, not sure if this would even show up on a background check. One was for when I was 16 years old and being with someone who wrote on a stop sign with a marker, believe I was charged with vandalism, even though I was only with someone who did it. I got hit with a few hours of community service. And the other one was a bit more serious..Well only serious on paper. I ran into some friends of friends (didnt know any of their names) and while talking for a few minutes (''hey, hows Joe been'' kind of thing) one of them decides to run up on a chinese food delivery man and grabs $10 worth of food out of his hand and runs away. In in the heat of the moment, like an idiot, I run away with them, long story short, I wind up being arrested for it with them. I can not remember what I was charged or even convicted of (this was 11 years ago when I was 13-14), but I know it was something pretty serious on paper. I was pretty much a young idiot with not too much guidance growing up in a bad neighborhood and although never really broke the law or did anything too bad, I associated myself with people who did. As an adult, Ive had steady jobs since the age of 18, was a competitive athlete for years, never had any negative contact with the police, never broke any laws, was always one of the best employees with any job I ever had, have excellent references, loved by anyone I ever came in contact with, do not associate myself with anyone who breaks the law, I never did any drugs. I'm a very positive, motivated, disciplined, hard working, law abiding citizen. I also got a perfect score on the NYPD test with no wrong answers at all. I currently work as a Loss Prevention Officer and as a boxing coach and strength and conditioning coach. I work closely with the NYPD as a LP Officer and have fitness clients who are police officers and I know they would vouch for me being an amazing candidate for a career as a Police Officer. I am hoping maybe a police recruiter, investigator or a long time veteran can offer their opinion and answer to my question-- With the information I provided, will having those arrests on my record keep me from being a Police Officer?

Thanks in advance and I am open to all answers, advice and opinions.

-Jason.

[retdetsgt]

I can't speak for NYPD, but my department out here would overlook the juvenile stuff if the rest of what you said was true. I had some not too good police contact as a kid and it wasn't because of my friends, at that age some things just sounded like a good idea at the time. I cleaned up mine with 6 years of honorable military service and had no problem being hired.

[Jsnandrew]

Thank you, sir. I personally think that it is wrong for departments to deny people because of bad choices they made when they were young. That promotes the idea that it is impossible for anyone to be able to change for the better and change their life around. Thank you for your 6 years of military service and your service as a police officer.

[G35 Mass]

I personally think that it is wrong for departments to deny people because of bad choices they made when they were young. That promotes the idea that it is impossible for anyone to be able to change for the better and change their life around.

Why take someone who has supposedly changed when there are perfect candidates out there who haven't committed ROBBERY, which is likely what you were charged and convicted of?

[Jsnandrew]

Why take someone who has supposedly changed when there are perfect candidates out there who haven't committed ROBBERY, which is likely what you were charged and convicted of?

I never committed robbery, I never stole anything from anyone in my life. No such thing as a perfect candidate. Every cop I know has tried marijuana or committed some type of crime before and has broken the law to some extent, whether it was something as small as a traffic violation, underage drinking, or backing a buddy up in a street fight. Of course most never got caught, if they got caught for EVERY SINGLE CRIME they ever committed, they would not be on the job and neither would the majority of everyone else on the job. So i guess it's a matter of having the luck of not getting caught for doing a crime, then it's ok to be a police officer? In NYC if a black kid gets a 70 on the NYPD test and a white kid gets a 97, they call the black kid first. Is that fair? If theres someone with a perfect record and who is more qualified to do the job, by all means, take him before me, but I feel I should still be able to get the job as well. But at the end of the day, it doesnt matter how I feel, that is why i am trying to get as much imput as possible, so thank you for your response.

[Legoate]

I personally think that it is wrong for departments to deny people because of bad choices they made when they were young.

I hate to be blunt, but this is a police website so here it is: Nobody involved in police hiring CARES what you think.

Also, reading your next paragraph you are trying to justify bad behavior using the "every cop I know did the same thing" defense- and that also doesn't fly in front of hiring boards.

From your initial post what you were involved in was a felony theft from a person (in my state) possibly rising to the level of strong arm robbery. A hiring board will care about the FACTS from that case, not your opinion or feelings about it. You can bet they will want documentation to base their decision off of.

They will also look deep into many other parts of your background and go over each part in detail.

Then THEY will decide what is important to them, and what is not.

How can I be so sure of this? Because I've been involved in police hiring and sometimes it just comes down to a gut feeling- If I get the feeling that you're not being upfront/honest, I think you show a history of poor decision making, I think you lack integrity, or something about your history really bugs me- you don't get hired. It's really as simple as that.