Some Inside Policing Baseball

 

There are times that you reflect on your experience as a police officer, and for that matter, in any path you chose to walk. I ran across some observations from another police officer on a police blog. I’ll add my own comments on what this officer wrote.

The people at the top often don’t have a lot of practical experience. There are exceptions, but most cops who become chiefs, sheriffs, or other high-ranking officers spend most of their career paving the path to promotion. They spend a brief time as working cops, then transfer to a non-enforcement job, where they stay until they get their first promotion. They never truly understand the job, and the cops they oversee don’t identify with the brass, or the brass with the cops.

There is some truth to this. I have listened to what I call the 3.5 admin cops at roll call. The 3.5 refers to the minimum amount of years you had to spend on the streets before you could start climbing the admin ladder. The exceptions would be those that sought positions as K-9 cops or detectives.

There are some admin cops that like the paycheck, and there are others that are cowards, but they like having the badge. They get off the street as fast as they can because they don’t want to clean up messes, unfortunately, they become Monday morning quarterbacks. They weren’t there when things went to hell, and they didn’t see what the line cop saw, but they see themselves as experts. They are specialist’s in CYA; Cover Your [redacted]. Like a Monday morning quarterback, they will throw a beat cop under the bus of public outrage. It should be a relief to the public, as well as to other police officers that admin cops are not out on the street.

There is lots of stress, but not the kind you might think. Most of the stress comes from the police station, not the street. Law enforcement agencies are extremely political. Who likes you or who you’re friends or relatives with has a lot more to do with the progress of your career than how good you are at your job. “Management by intimidation” is a common technique. From a human resources perspective, law enforcement agencies are horrible places to work.

There is some truth to this, but once you become part of the minimum staffing model you can display the impudent digit, at least metaphorically anyway.

There aren’t all that many bigots. There are some, of course – in a cohort of close to a million people, some of them will be biased. You can get fired for expressing those feelings, so they tend not to last long. Most cops don’t especially care what color you are, what religion you practice, what country your ancestors came from, how much money you have, or what your sexual orientation is. Cops see every kind of person, often at the worst moments of their lives. They know there are good and bad people in every category. They do have a strong bias against jerks, so don’t be one of those.

This last paragraph is true. When you work nights you cannot tell what color a driver is. What you do know is that the driver has run one stop sign, or in my case one driver that ran three stop signs, all within three blocks. I had no idea who, or what color he was.

I could care less what Rodney Balko or David French say about policing, or police officers. They have no idea what they are talking about, nor have they spent any time riding with a police officer, but somehow they are experts on policing.

Published in Policing
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 34 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Django (View Comment):

    Spin (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    If it’s any comfort, the tendency of those who end up at the [administrative] top to leave the front lines fairly quickly is widespread. It’s not just a police thing. My son sees it in the military (where he is), and I have seen lots of it in large corporations.

    It’s the Dilbert Principle:

    Generally speaking, incompetent workers will be promoted above competent workers to managerial positions, thus removing them from the actual work and minimizing the damage they can do.

    This is sometimes the case.

    In a lot of cases, however, the person is promoted to management because they are the ones who take responsibility. And though they may not be the most skilled at specific tasks, they understand how to get things done, they don’t freak out when things don’t go according to plan, they are easy to get along with.

    The people who don’t get promoted like the Dilbert Principle, because it helps them assuage their disappointment at not having been promoted.

    I can think of a number of folks I know who were not promoted, said “I don’t want to be a manager anyway, don’t want to deal with the BS!”, then criticize every decision the manager makes on the grounds that they would have done it differently.

    Meanwhile, every manager I know, with rare exception, loses sleep at night fretting about the fact that every meeting they attend, every spreadsheet they review, takes them one step further away from the job. They are held responsible for getting things done, have almost no time to actually get the things done, and get nothing but grief from both ends of the stick.

    Ok…I realize this has turned in to a rant. So I’ll shut up.

    You weren’t ranting. I had a brief stint as a “technical manager” and dealt with those who wanted it done differently every time something was to be done. I dealt with it the same way every time. It’s my decision because I am the one to take the heat if the decision is wrong. Tell me and convince me why it should be done your way. I’ll listen, but it’s my decision. If you aren’t on board with that, find employment elsewhere or volunteer to take the heat for me. Your choice.

    Hear, hear!

    • #31
  2. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    This conversation has a taken a bit of a turn, as do all Ricochet discussions.  But let me continue down this side street a bit further.  I recall a movie starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin.  Pacino was a cop, Barkin the owner of a swank clothing store, if I recall right.  He was investigating a crime, and that brough him in to her store.  They began dating, but she didn’t know he was a cop.  Until, as anyone could have predicted, she finds out.  Then she’s angry.  His response is classic:

    I can’t define the “wet a** hour” is, but I know it when I see it.  Like a police officer, the mid-level manager is everybody’s daddy.  

     

     

    • #32
  3. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    My experience has been that in professions requiring a high degree of technical competence, the best leaders have been those who reluctantly enter the management ranks.  They also suffer from high burnout since people are the best and worst part of every supervisor’s day.  The notion that a very talented generalist can succeed might work at the CEO or senior VP level but it’s a disaster for middle and lower level management.  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • #33
  4. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Los Angeles’s own Jack Dunphy (a pseudonym) once wrote that once a cop left the street, he tended to become an administrator–that is, a civil servant–or work in an anti-drug program–in other words, become part of the educational system–or be an official of the police union–that is, a labor leader.

    A civil servant, an educator, or a labor leader; in short, a Democrat.

    It’s still true.

    • #34
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.