Essay on Dangerous Police Work

Introduction

The police officers are sent out on duty with the warning that translates to "come back safe." 84% of the police officers agree that they worry about their life during the mission while 86% of them think that the public doesn't understand the situation. Physical confrontations with individual resisting arrest is a common phenomenon. 27% of the police officers have shot at someone in their line of duty excluding the training period (Nhan, 2014). While serving at these levels, a more significant percentage of the police are abused verbally about their tasks, and very few get recognition for their contribution.

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The most recognizable danger to the police are the dangerous people; arguably, these are the criminals who are armed or violent and when caught outside the law will refuse to comply with arrest procedures. Some groups of people intentionally target police officers, either killing or maiming them. In the USA alone, the number of police officers murdered by criminals between 1980 and 2014 was 64 (Nhan, 2014), while in 2013 alone 50, 000 police officers were assaulted (Nhan, 2014). Since the police officers never know how the encounter will be with any citizen, they tend to implement harsh methods of interaction or arrest. Traffic police officers are also under considerable risks from accidents especially those that work under traffic enforcement. The police pursuits by cars further provide situations which frequently put them in danger. Training activities for the police involving shooting, defensive tactics expose them to injury or even death. The health of the police officers is affected by primary causes of stress, poor sleeping habits, and fatigues. Destructive encounters with citizens also bring about post-traumatic stress. These dangerous situations develop a culture of violence among the police officers as the people do not understand their predicaments.

Proving Masculinity

The police work involves lots of dangerous work that would include the dominance character of the masculine gender. The masculinity attributes that are imitated by the police are the strength, bravery, and autonomism. For the officers to fit into their culture and role, they have to take up a method of enforcing their authority. They have to downplay the social service aspects of the police job and adapt the image of a physical crime fighter. The positives derived from nature are the self-control, stoicism, and composure (Rahr & Rice, 2015). Anger is the only acceptable emotion of the masculine police officers to avoid the perception that they are harboring weakness. The outcome of this behavior is the behavior is the marginalization of the female police officers, alienation from the concerns of health, poor relationships, and emotions. The other outcomes that are objective and lead to a negative police culture are the increased risk-taking and violation of human rights.

Solidarity and Suspicion

Police are involved in investigations within their community even in their immediate social constructs. The police culture, therefore, prescribes that they cannot trust someone new neither should they share any information with anyone. There is a blue wall of silence created between them and the general public; arguably, there is the creation of a 'them' versus 'us' mentality. Some police officers interpret the attitude to refer to the public as a group of people who don't share their values and conspire against them since they have little regard for their authority (Prenzler, 2016). It leads to the apprehension of the individual for bogus infractions so that they may obey the command of the police. Some police officers go to great extents to prove their authority because of this mentality; arguably, the presence of role model supervisors would aid in cooling them down.

The wall of secrecy also surrounds the relationship between the police officers' colleagues. It is thought to be the dark side of policing and would even maintain it in their investigations pertaining their colleagues. However, within the police culture, there is a new brotherhood bond that states that there should be solidarity when there is need to defend and watch each other's back. Whenever police misconduct occurs within their ranks, it will, therefore, be hard for them to report it (Brewer et al., 2016). The solidarity that they create because of being alienated from the other part of the community becomes a binding force and prevents them from turning against each other. Eventually, in countries where the police force is not well enlightened of the consequences of the misconduct and reporting, the cases of officers reporting each other are low. However, some countries such as Canada have 66% of the police officers who are willing to file an incident for misconduct of their fellows.

Conclusion

The culture that slowly develops inside the police force is directly related to the police misconduct. Some of the individual police characteristics such as seeking masculinity and using secrecy to protect their colleagues are their own doing. However, some aspects such as their nature of work and the perceptions that people have towards them beyond their control, and therefore, any reaction they have to those actions should not result in judgment. As a result, not all aspects of the negative police culture are as a result of their police work, some of it is self-imposed.