Making Crime Pay by Andrea Campbell

Author:Andrea Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allworth
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Characterizing a Police Officer

Law-enforcement officers, no matter what division or level, must uphold and follow the law in order to obtain proof of guilt and the satisfactory result—a judgment against the perpetrator. Any egregious technicalities against the suspect’s constitutional rights give rise to many problems, delays, and even mistrials. Any screw-ups can result in a case dismissal. The drama of dealing with these problems can add verisimilitude and depth to your stories. Just realize that not every mistake leads to a criminal’s freedom, and not every encounter can end with a major shootout or body count.

It may help you to portray police officers correctly if you remember that they are, first of all, human beings. Everyday civilians view cops with a skewed perception. He is “the guy who gave me a ticket,” or he’s someone to complain to about an injustice or the problems with society, as if it’s in a cop’s power to do something about it. It’s a status that calls forth certain clichéd images the media helps to perpetuate through news, books, and movies. The Corrupt Cop and the Stupid Cop stereotypes are usually the staples of any private-eye story or anything involving a conspiracy theme. People in general rely so instinctively on these character types and preconceptions that most of the time they don’t recognize their overgeneralizations. It would behoove you, then, to take some effort to give them, the cops, life: Mention personal problems, or talk about how they fight disillusionment. Learn to describe the world they live in with more specificity. Much of their time is spent with other fellow officers and their families. Think about how spending the major portion of their day and night with the dregs of society affects their outlook and demeanor. And just as doctors have their Latin prescriptions, and scientists have their elements, so do police officers have their codes and calls. Using their argot, they are able to communicate with each other in a way that is not clear to the common people around them. And you can use that argot to add dimension to your police characters.

Patrol Officers

The patrol division is the backbone of the agency. Regardless of where police officers come from or end up, they will experience some of what the patrol division offers. As the first assignment, a rookie officer is usually placed with a more senior member of the division, who could be referred to as a “field training officer” or, more colloquially, “coach.” The trend in law-enforcement training is toward the use of field-training programs; however, a substantial portion relies on on-the-job training combined with additional classroom instruction.

A new officer is assigned to a particular community in accordance with the personnel needs of the patrol bureau and with the philosophy of the chief administrator. One chief may feel, perhaps, that the new officer should be directly challenged and evaluated, and so assigns the rookie to a high-crime area to accelerate the acquiring of experience. Others opt for a slower approach, putting officers in a less hostile environment before immersing them in a highly charged region.

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