Careers On A City Police Force - Patrol Officer

Police officers constantly go on patrol, 24 hours a day in most cities, to make sure that people who are thinking about committing crimes know that they will be caught and punished if they do. This is known as showing the flag,or telling the bad guys who's the real boss in the neighborhood. This is also the backbone of policing technique. Cops look for trouble and hope they don't find it. Make no mistake cops are not universally loved. Certainly they are despised by criminals, but they are also thought of by many law-abiding folks as agents of oppression. Most such claims have little validity in the United States, although there is no debating the fact that police forces have been used for devious ends in many other countries. In this country, cops are generally respected and their service to the community valued, even by people who don't necessarily like them on a personal level. Is this the right role for you? Nobody has ever suggested that being a police officer is easy. The hours can be long, and the work can range from tedious to dangerous to rewarding, and all in the same day. Nobody ever became a cop to get rich. Cops get medals and parades, and suffer from higher rates of suicide and divorce than people in most other professions. Ask most police officers and they'll tell you that they wouldn't want to be anything else, even on a bad day.