well, hee's my $.02
Well, here's my response to some of the "wisdom" I've seen displayed. . .
That makes two of us. I'm also a CJ major, and the vast majority of my peers disgust me. They buy into the police subculture that anyone that isnt a cop is "the enemy."
as a Criminal Justice major, i encounter more potential officers who view it as "us vs 'The scum" and ofcouse any one in the system is guilty, or they wouldnt be in the system.
Stress on the word potential. As in not yet. As in not even an FNG. There are many people who wanna be the police, not as many who can be. Ben a cop for a while, got some college under my belt too (working ever so slowly on my AA). CJ majors are quite possibly worse than the Liberal Arts majors for Bullsh*t. . . IMHO. Nothing personal, just my observation.
My advice for anyone wanting to get into Law Enforcement is to try working at a local county jail for a year or so. Best experience and training you can get in preparation for law enforcement. Best of all you get to learn your frequent fliers. After a few years there, you'll either get fed up and get out, or develope the set of skills you'll need to be an effective LEO; the intuition, the ability to read people, and "common sense" judgement skills.
Until law enforcement requires at least a BA or BS, it will never be professional. Texas requires only 12 hours of college credit to be TCLEOSE certified
SWAT and elite police units should not exist in a truly free republic, the fact that they exist indicates our freedoms are in grave peril.
What, pray tell, will requiring a 4 yr degree gain law enforcement as a field? There are departments that require this Gaston County here in NC for one. They also are continually short on personel. Seems that college grads have better thins to do then earn $30k a year and the scorn of the population. Most departements DO offer incentive pay for higher education. A great motivator for officers to grind out their college.
Prove to me that Art Appreciation and American Lit make a better officer. I for one have not seen it. Not that they make worse officers. . just not any better. It does make for better written reports.
Power inevitably tends to corrupt.
By that standard I ought to be peddeling child porn and smoking eightballs while kicking nuns to death by now. . get real.
It's proven that cops are no better or worse then the general popuation in terms of breaking the law. When you consider that most of the population gets through life without comitting a felony or even a serious misdemeanor.. well, I guess most cops can do the same.
Some of the things that are written on this board appear to be no more than a mirror image of the liberal paranoia propaganda.
Same logic really. "I can't trust myself with the power (legal powers in law enforcement/right to bear arms as a free citizen), so I can't trust anyone else with that power"
Mayberry was fiction, in that it NEVER really existed. Mayberry never had murders, never had parents beating or raping their children. Mayberry had Otis, who was always drunk, but always harmless, but didn't seem to have the drunk who drove through a Stop sign and killed a couple driving home from a date. Mayberry didn't have clandestine meth labs, or a wide variety of gangs who will use violence, including murder for criminal profit. AGAIN, Mayberry was fiction and never existed. Real places, including small towns, have always had lots of evil things going on, although many people were, and some still are, in denial about that.
If you start by whining that modern cops aren't like Andy and Barney in Mayberry, you've already proven your argument is not based in reality. You're asking for the real world to operate like a TV show!
Exactly.
I would much prefer a breath test vs the various made up "field sobriety tests".
Field sobriety tests are standardized. They establish probable cause. Once you have probable case, you haul said drunk in for a breath test. A portable breath test can also establish said PC.
And that people is the REAL problem with LEO's today - obedience without question to their masters in the government. They stopped serving the citizenry about 40 years ago.
Cops are agents of the government not the people.
That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. The role of police is to enforce the LAW. LAW is enacted by the GOVERNMENT which is elected by the CITIZENS. So yes, LEO's serve the government, always have, always will.
If the police have to bust up a Meth. Lab. run by some Latin gang or the Hell's Angels, I think they should have the tools they need to go in heavy and live to go home to their wives and kids.
Yes. How I wish some of you CCW badge wearing, tacti-cool mall ninjas would get off your stinking rears and GO through a law enforcement training program and GET on the street. Hell, ride along for a few weeks. Then you could see the reality that people like myself and other LEOs have to deal with every day. It's called the real world.
In closing, a quote from someone who said it better:
It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. -Theodore Roosevelt
