-By Richard Solita
The modern police officers of today are certainly poles apart from the cop of twenty years ago. For one thing, many claim the progressive police are much more professional and educated than the dinosaurs that walked the streets two decades ago. That may be true, but is that what the public wants? Currently, I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area and have been teaching criminal justice students who reside in the valley of the sun.
In the last five years, I have instructed over 1500 students while discovering their attitudes towards the police is less than distasteful. In some cases, the word hate comes to mind. These students are from all walks of life and all ages. They are not felons or they would not be in a criminal justice program. They are members of the general public. So, let’s differentiate between the public in general and the criminal element of society.
In the world of policing, these two categories are certainly separate. The public in general mostly commit crimes of domestic violence, disturbances, and a traffic violation or two. But, in the world of the criminal, he or she commits crime after crime, probably on a weekly basis. Thus, the above facts places the individual students of criminal justices programs in the group of general public and not in the category the police refer to as the criminal element of society.
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Old Cop / New Cop: I’ll Take the Past”