Would You Rather Direct Traffic or Capture Monsters?

5 min read

Just now

If you were a cop, would you rather direct traffic at a construction site or put a bullet through the skull of a mass shooter about to kill a bunch of kids? When your shift ends and you hang up your service belt, which gives you a greater sense of accomplshment, appreciation and purpose?

When you said in 3rd grade that you wanted to be a cop, did you dream of aimlessly patrolling neighborhoods not sure of what nefarious character you were looking for? When you played cops & robbers the mission was clear: catch the bad guys. Why is that mission now so murky?

When I chatted with a buddy whose a retired cop, he commiserated that cops spend way too much time doing paperwork. Same observations are made by retired teachers who complain that record keeping has taken priority over teaching, which was their reason they entered the profession in the first place. Teachers frequently complain about teaching to the test rather than to the student. Social workers also complain about the revolving door syndrome processing reports concerning the same clients who are in their words “frequent fliers”. The clients participate in a variety of programs but never address root causes of their distressed state in life.

Back to my cop buddy and his angst about report writing, I suggested that filling out paperwork at scenes such as vandalism with minor property damage, might be handled by what I called Community Agents. I used the term “agent” because in these circumstances it’s more just an insurance claim matter. A uniformed Community Agent could be equipped with a panic button and a 2-way radio in case of emergency or an unforseen turn of events. A cop who’s already on patrol could be notified that the Community Agent was on-scene investigating some act of vandalism or even a minor fender bender just in case a benign situation escalated. The Community Agent could also be an extra set of eyes & ears in the community reporting suspicious activity or alarming trends.

My cop buddy liked the idea of being freed up from the drudgery of report writing. However, he was skeptical of the notion of giving up extra pay that comes with directing traffic at construction sites if cops were replaced with less costly flagmen. I also sensed some reticence about having non-cops whether they are Community Agents, social workers, outreach workers or citizen advisory/liasion members doing ride-alongs. Likewise, my retired teacher buddies were supportive of sending disruptive students to a specialist who could deal with root causes of disruptive behavior. However, as with the cops, I sensed some concerns and possibly some trust issues about having this extra helper in their classroom. For cops and teachers (and everybody for that matter), there is a fear of loosing control and being evaluated and possibly misunderstood. My answer to this understandable concern is to put in place oversight whereby the “helpers” really get to “help” and those who are being helped (the cops, teachers or whomever) are not being unjustly judged or spied upon. A side benefit to this re-structuring would be the weeding out of bad cops, bad teachers, bad employees of whatever the profession. Furthermore, this might lead to more cost effective delivery of services. Tax payers would benefit.

I appreciate these concerns and reluctance to change institutional cultures. However, we can not keep doing things the same way over and over and expect different results. More cops, more teachers, more social workers or more of whatever profession being discussed without fundamental changes will never dig us out of this hole.

Taking the afore mentioned baby steps might move us closer to revamping the definition of what it means to be a cop, teacher, social worker or whatever profession needs revamping. Maybe if we inch toward transitioning employees in the helping/social services fields to become mentors rather than straightjacketing them with outdated roles and titles, we might, in the long run, make these fields more rewarding. Coincidentally these are the fields experiencing severe recruitment and retention issues. There is concern that these fields are not attracting the best, the brightest and most importantly the most appropriate and most motivated. Cops will always be needed to break up bar fights, teachers will always need to teach reading-writing-arithmatic and social workers will always need to administer programs. That said, we should stop forcing these professionals to be “all things to all people”.

Some examples:

Cops: Contract with a “geek squad” to ferret out computer crimes, fraud, white collar crimes, hate speech, and other indicators that are precursers to a tragedy on the doorstep of the community. I support protections of civil liberties so we certainly still need to obtain warrants and show probabale cause if the case advances in the criminal justice system. However, every police chief will note that a very small percent of the community is the source of crime and disorder in any community. So why can’t we free up cops to become mentors to this limited group? It would be more cost effective to transition to what I call micro-policing. We used to call this Community Policing but I suggest taking it the next step to micro-policing. Furthermore, all too often Community Policing was relegated to a special unit having limited impact among the entire police department and sometimes (not always) just amounting to “window dressing” as a demonstration of community involvement. This same “window dressing” has unfortunately applied to compartmentalization with creation of Youth/School Resource Officers. We still need to have a limited (but sufficient) amount of resources devoted to addressing the “outsider” who’s passing thru town and causing trouble. More intensive video surveillance of the public streets would document whatever crime or accidents occur. Let the camera augment the conviction rates while the cops time is freed up mentoring and networking with those most in need of re-directing.

Teachers: Every teacher hopefully loves the subject they teach. Math for the mathmatician, history for the history buff, etc. If their time could be freed up so they can work more intensively with each student sharing their zest for the subject, wouldn’t that be a more productive teaching style. That would replace the “classroom management” that sucks up so much of a teachers time and energy. The phrase “when the student’s ready to learn, the teacher can teach” sums up this notion which only happens when the teacher is freed up for an intensive mentorship role.

Social workers and heath care professionals: Unless their time/energy is freed up enabling them to get to the root problems affecting their clients and patients, they will continue to busy themselves (and burn out) treating symptoms rather than addressing causes.

So back to my initial graphic question directed to cops: “Do you want to direct traffic of capture monsters?”

This question could be broadened to whatever profession that’s under the microscope. Depending upon the answer that’s given, it raises the further question “Is this really the right profession for you and what’s your true motivation?”

Written by Greg Dunn

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Boomer who’s a late bloomer to writing/blogging and loving it! Published novel MALL CHILD based on 15 years as weekend mall cop & 40 years as city planner

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