Given all the political anti-police rhetoric swirling around over the past three years, it is no wonder it has become extremely difficult to recruit new police officers in many areas of Georgia and the country. The ideal new police officer is in his or her twenties or thirties, and their generation has been bombarded with every possible negative image of policing in general. It has been enough to discourage anyone from seeking a new career in policing, and most potential applicants have never heard the rest of the story.
There are many occupations and career paths young people can pursue, but all jobs and careers have personal risks and dangers. Many jobs produce long-term job stress, debilitating anxiety, lack of fulfilment or challenge and low morale that can eventually lead to deadly depression. Police work, on the other hand, offers the chance for fulfillment from serving others, adventure, exhilaration, and the opportunity to render true justice. For someone looking for a sense of belonging and comradery, police officers find it– not only with everyone else who wears the badge, but also with firefighters, paramedics, and their emergency medical counterparts. Police officers establish personal relationships that last a lifetime.
Wearing the police badge provides an individual with the rare chance to serve people from all walks of life and protect them from harm. Imagine the joy an officer feels when he or she knows they have made a difference or saved a life. Knowing, for example, that they were able to persuade a desperate suicidal person teetering on a ledge, that life is worth living. Imagine the satisfaction derived by convincing a battered victim of domestic violence to finally escape an abusive relationship or rescuing a child from unspeakable abuse. Imagine rescuing a neglected disoriented elderly victim from certain death. The intrinsic rewards of policing alone have the effect of making those who wear the badge better human beings.
For those who tend to like people and be socially oriented, policing provides opportunities no other career can. A police officer meets every kind of person in every kind of situation, sometimes at their worst, sometimes at their best. But the officer gets to interact with them all and gain insight into people unlike themselves. Over time, it gives the officer maturity and understanding of people in general: the good, the bad and the ugly. It also develops, within the officer keen senses, of sympathy, empathy, and compassion that no one gains around a company water cooler, company picnic, or working from home.
For those who truly value justice for all, a police officer gets to call more balls and strikes than any referee or mediator. Officers routinely find themselves determining things like who started the fight, who is lying and who is telling the truth, who deserves a citation for driving dangerously versus who deserves a break. They also determine who needs to be protected from themselves, such as a drunk driver, person contemplating suicide, or someone high on drugs. Along the way, officers develop keen judgmental abilities and become competent abettors of truth, even when victims of domestic abuse, human trafficking, child abuse, or elder abuse are frightened and uncooperative. Officers are often the ones to bring logic and sanity to insane situations.
Police officers have an incredible amount of power. They can remove a person’s liberty by arresting them, legally search someone’s home and belongings, seize personal property, use physical force and, under certain circumstances, legally kill someone to protect a life. These are amazing powers to have, but they come with a lot of training and responsibility to exercise them with prudence and restraint. A police officers’ powers are for the purpose of maintaining law and order and protection of everyone.
The badge police officers wear symbolizes many good things, but none more important than the trust the public has in police officers to do the right things.
Imagine yourself relaxing with friends of different occupations including a police officer. Whose stories would you rather hear; someone who tells of a situation where there was an accidental debit in the credit column, someone who tells of an idiotic boss who made a fool of himself, or a police officer who can tell you the real story behind the sensational headlines? Don’t we appreciate the person who was in the arena, fighting the good fight, more than spectators and armchair quarterbacks?
If we agree that we value law and order in the future, we need to stop letting others discourage promising young people from becoming police officers and let them know there are two sides to every story. We need police officers to be heroes in our society.
Dan Flynn served as the police chief of both Savannah and Marietta during his law enforcement career.
