Policing Is The Microcosmic Mediator

4 Pages 1055 Words

“ The police officer is a microcosmic mediator of the relations of power in a society”. This is an extremely powerful statement to me and could mean a lot of different things. I believe it to mean this. The police officer, today’s police officer (not the one In post modernity times) is the only thing that breaches the gap between the normal citizen and the law. In everyday society the normal person doesn’t really ever come in contact with the law unless when receiving a speeding or parking ticket, however the officer is the people’s law, in essence the only law they ever really deal with. In today’s communities the police officer is the only one who can really see what’s going on, no politics just the truth. But the police officer can only see what he knows to look for, and without instinct and training there is nothing. The core values of a police officer are the second most important thing there is. The first in my opinion is already established experience in the communities in which they have lived. For example when I took my police officer exam during the summer for the NYPD as well as the Suffolk and Nassau counties exams, the first thing the Sgt. Giving me the test told me was remember that we are looking for “ Real people to become real cops” and that made even more clear to me, and I related it directly to the statement that we herd during the community policing talks “ The public are the police and the police are the public” and never was that more evident then now. The NYPD didn’t want some kid from the happy side of life or the Island, they wanted a kid who has grown up in the city and knows how to walk, sleep, smell the city and all its intricate belongings. How can you possibly put a man who has no idea if living or working in the city, as a police officer and tell him to go and not only look but stop and prevent crime. You will never find anything if you don’t know where and how to loo...