Police Personality

Robert W. Balch an assistant professor at the University of Montana states that acknowledges that a lot has been written about police mentality and going by this literature then a police man can be described as cynical, suspicious and conservative. Although authors vary in emphasis, there is a general agreement on the mentality that make up a police mentality. Police officers are supposed to be very suspicious characters always looking out for the unusual and suspecting evil wherever he goes.

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According to Colin maclness, suspicion is a deep seated manifestation of political and emotional conservativeness. After all policemen have no faith in fellow man and are in most cases firmly convinced that they sit in between tenuous social order and utter chaos. However policemen have special traits that strike almost all the time despite the hard situations that we at times put them. These striking traits may according to excerpt from “confession from a hardass” include;

Honesty: A statement from a police officer in his own country is enough to put people in jail for a long time. In a one to one confrontation an officer’s word will still be true unless refuted by other credible and credible evidence. This is a great amount of power and it must be protected at all times lest he loses friendship, trust and respect of other officers.

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Leadership: in law enforcement each officer becomes a leader in helping people solve their problems and work through difficult situations. They take up additional responsibility and have no choice of the place to work from simply because of the hardships, fear of failure or perceived extreme difficulty. They are always willing to take up the hard challenges that the rest of the population may not be willing to handle no matter how hard these may be.

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Confidentiality: police officers are the most confidential beings that one would ever meet in life. They can at all time be trusted not to reveal information to persons not intended to be the recipients and correctly present or so it seems information to those who are the right  recipients.

Accept responsibility for both self and others: they are willing to accept punishment an correct errors without passing on the blame to others as well as take responsibility for their lives without passing on the blame to other people whether their family or otherwise.

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Accept extra responsibility without compensation: the police are one group of people who work without a clearly set out job description. In normal work situation people are paid for any extra works not set out as their responsibilities an would not be willing to volunteer without their terms being spelt out. This is however different for the police officers who have to volunteer to help both fellow policemen and the local population without additional terms of compensation being spelt out.

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 Never take facts for granted principle: police officers duty is to care about both self and others and will take time t analyze every situation to ensure that they are not led by emotions in carrying out their responsibilities. They are known good listeners and slow speaker and will take time to think and analyse the situation at hand.

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Challenge unlawful order or authority: police men do not visualize authority s excuses to commit errors in judgment due to the ready made excuse “I was following orders”. They are willing to take up punishment in order to follow the correct course of action even in extremely hard situations.

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Teamwork: police men are willing to accept opinion and leadership of others regardless of their personal feelings about them. In police career, young and inexperienced officers are given trust, authority and responsibility over other personnel and it takes teamwork for an elder officer to obey and follow orders from the perceived junior. This among other traits makes the police a unique group of human beings as they participate in other peoples live and in my view this gives them the distinct characteristics that we all identify with.

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This makes Robert some how right about the characteristics of the police labeling them as suspicious, cynical, conventional, prejudice and distrust on the unusual. Though the traits are poorly defined and their names vary, but the syndrome still remains the same.

The unmatched traits of the police

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Reference:

Robert W. Balch, the journal of criminal law, criminology and police science (1972), vol.63, North Western University, USA