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Why Are People Drawn To Be Law Enforcement Officers?

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Justmehere

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This might be the dumbest question ever.

I'm trying to understand why people become police or corrections officers. I'm so thankful for those who do or have done this job, and the huge service they provide to our communities.

It seems like such and awful and horrible job, dealing with criminals all the time. It is something that takes so much courage and bravery to do. I'm wondering how people do it for as long as they do - one day to decades in the field.

Are people drawn to that line of work out of a sense of duty? Honor? Wanting to protect others? Serve the community? Get justice for victims? Make sure justice is served against perps?

This is what I assume, but I don't know for sure. Can anyone explain how they came to be police or corrections officers? To be in the line of work of dealing with criminals all the time? What draws people to that job and keep them in it for however long people stay?

Maybe I'm just being dense and stupid, but I really genuinely want to understand this more. I grew up in a town where law enforcement and the local prison was the biggest employer. I was just a kid though. I never have really understood why and how people do that line of work. This is not a question of judgement, but one of curiosity and wanting to understand the people in the community I grew up in better.
 
Some DEFINITELY need that power trip. I've been around enough cops to know this is true.

FYI

None of those who became a cop for the wrong reason will reply so in a sense your results will be skewed.
 
I actually was thinking maybe I need to post this question on a law enforcement forum or something because many here been very wounded by the job.

The right reasons -it's something I want to understand more of.
 
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I have wanted to and still do from time to time, I know I'm no where near up to the job though. I want to see the world be a better place for others both morally and judicially, I want to protect others in a way I wish I was protected and I want to catch abusers in the way I wished my abusers were. I'm quite certain my view is naive and simplistic.
 
I think it has to do with the satisfaction of being able to catch the "bad guys" or some people pursue that career just to make themselves look like heroes. there are good cops and bad cops. I also agree that it has something to do with power. some cops love being jerks and will hand out tickets for things like going one mile over the speed limit. I guess it gives them a thrill.
 
I always thought it was for the power-trip. They want to have power over people.
Sorry, my view is negatively skewed. Cops, to me, are the worst of the worst.
It's just my experience.

Can't say I've got much love for law enforcement these days. After being told in no uncertain terms that my child's abuse investigation wasn't priority because she didn't actually die. And hearing that sentiment time and time again from families of victims going through the same.
 
I get it. There are assholes in every field, and I've seen some of the worst stuff about how the profession and/or people in law enforcement fails. We can all speculate as to motives behind those failures and why the jerks are the way they are.

But, there are good people drawn to it for reasons that are not nefarious.

I would like to hear more from those who are drawn to the job, in the past and/or now, and understand from them the reasons why.
 
Can't say I've got much love for law enforcement these days. After being told in no uncertain terms that my child's abuse investigation wasn't priority because she didn't actually die. And hearing that sentiment time and time again from families of victims going through the same.

Lukie the person that hurt your daughter should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I am mortified to know otherwise.
 
There are good people, even in the worst of institutions.

Some get out in time, others get hurt (and we have some of those people here), and some take the path of least resistance and get corrupted. That corruption is not necessarily a bad thing - if you were a Jew in 1939 Berlin, would you rather meet a corrupt cop, or a diligent one, intent on following orders to the letter?

There are some very simple but very powerful tools of institutional analysis, which consist of finding and examining the basic assumptions of an institution and what logical conclusions they must innevitably lead to if they are followed.

Tax funding assumes that it is right for some people to take from others with threat of force (basically strong arm or armed robbery)
Sovereign imunity assumes that some are subject to laws and others aren't
positive (posited) law assumes that stroke of one person's pen is binding on others
its enforcemeent assumes that force up to and including murder will be used to enforce compliance

Those are a few of the basic assumptions
check out a few of the contradictions that they immediately lead to, when you compare them to the popular misconceptions about the role of tax funded monopoly police:
a "protector of private property" that is funded by armed robbery
a protector of persons with the right to summarily execute you for a victimless activity (eg posession of plants)

Will Grigg, does excellent work on a shoe string budget of donations, documenting where those assumptions lead to in real life (eg the shooting dead of a 7 year old girl in her own home during a botched raid that was being filmed for a cable tv show), and compares and contrasts them with the operation of the 75% plus of full time employed protectors of person and property who are not tax funded, and who serve their freely choosing customers and communities, rather than enforcing the whim of the political caste.

can I suggest that you take a look at this article of Will Grigg's from a few weeks back http://freedominourtime.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/call-anti-police-ending-states-security.html
 
I've had both really good and really bad experiences with law enforcement officers. There are some that really care about what they do for society and others that are corrupt and power hungry. A bit like politics I guess. I think cops can come across as control freaks because of the training they receive. They have to act in a certain way because they have to maintain a presence of order and authority as part of their job. That doesn't mean they are on a power trip. To those that do the job I have a lot of respect for they work against a poor legal system. Catching the bad guys / girls is only the first part. They have no control over what happens after which in my opinion is where the system begins to fail. It would be a tough job for the compassionate.
 
Lukie the person that hurt your daughter should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I am mortified to know otherwise.

Nope, a year later he still walks as a free man. It's infuriating, but an all too common outcome in SBS cases. Many other families I've spoken with, the abuser is charged but only serves a handful of years. As compared to their victims, who live with debilitating conditions (blind, paralyzed, feeding tubes, breathing machines, etc) for the rest of their lives.

Not trying to run away with your thread @Justmehere. The policewoman leading my daughters investigation actually holds a lot of my respect. When we speak on the phone, I can hear the genuine frustration in her voice. I once read a news article about her saving a child from drowning. Part of the trade-off of the job, you have the opportunity to help a lot of people, but you can't help everyone. I'm sure a lot of these officers are genuinely caring, compassionate people, but they are working within a fractured system where all too often they are overwhelmed and their hands are tied.
 
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