Morale in a police department is a tricky thing.  Most of the time the budget is set a year and a half in advance and has little flexibility to add something incredible for the officers to enjoy, unless it costs nothing.  Morale builders that cost nothing are unicorns.  In my department, the Chief missed an excellent opportunity to improve morale and, in reality, decreased it.  My father-in-law (who has since passed) was the chief of two police departments in my area.  Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, on his own dime, he would buy each shift a meal, knowing that ..read more

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 One of the overlooked aspects of law enforcement (And FD, RN, and PW) is working weekends and holidays, when almost everyone else is off.  Today, for me, its 8 hrs OT at the desk (Double time how can you pass that up) and then 8 hrs regular shift...so my wife and daughter are on their own for Christmas Eve.  This is a common occurrence.  I work a 6 and 3 schedule so 1 out of 3 years I get the holiday off naturally.  As an example I got July 4th off but have to work Christmas Eve and Day.  So to all my fellow first responders and holiday workers of all kinds, have ..read more

I just saw this Op-Ed piece from the New York Times.  There are always costs with every new policy, policy change and the training that goes with it.  My experience has always been that it is a huge waste of time.  99% of the officers are usually doing the right thing already but you still have to sit through an 8 or a 16 hour training that only enriches the training providers.  Anyway for your consideration. The link to the article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/opinion/the-real-costs-of-policing-the-police.html?_r=0 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: The Real Costs of Policin ..read more

The Illinois General Assembly passed Public Act 098-0650:  The no police quota act.  So on the plus side they can no longer have the list of tickets that they can say, "Why are you so far behind Ofc Brown?"  The correct answer is, "Because I am covering all his calls that he can't answer because he is always out pimping the public" but you say, "I will certainly try harder."  Then don't. But of course with everything Illinois it can only look pleasing but never be substantive.  If you read the statute below you will see they still can evaluate us by, "Contact ..read more

We had a major incident that occurred almost two decades ago in which our town was linked to the crime but we were never able to discover where the crime had actually took place. A number of the affected departments set up an informal task force in order to solve the crime, but the leads were just not there and it went cold. Recently the lead department received new evidence that pointed to a hitherto unknown suspect. They came to our department and coordinated with our investigation division to pickup and go speak with this new suspect. So three-fourths of patrol is in the break room eati ..read more

 I am still here. I took some time off from the blog in order to achieve some fresh prospective on law enforcement. In other words, I got banged around a bit and got pissed and had to take five. The following expressed memory is not anything that made me angry, just thought it was amusing. Any-Who, last Christmas, our DC came into the patrol room a week or so before Christmas with a big box of booze. I just happened to be there and in seeing the big box of booze and knowing the proximity to our blessed Lord's birthday, asked what purpose the box provided (hoping of course...free booze ..read more

There are two, among many, unique aspects of the law enforcement profession.  The first is that police officers over time slowly withdraw all their socialization from any non-law enforcement source.  What that really means is that they only hang out with cops, drink at cop bars, golf with cops, work massive amounts of overtime with cops.  They even withdraw from their familial relationships. The second aspect is that we are solely judged by the one percent that are crazy, incredibly stupid or both.  Think if any profession was judged this way.   A brilliant New York n ..read more

 Sometimes the simplest things can do the most good.  Every police training that I have been subjected to in my 26 years (soon 27) in this profession has begun with going around the room telling everyone your name, years of service, position within the department and one thing that makes you unique.  Everyone hates it and it serves no purpose, it is supposed to be an ice breaker and loosen up the training environment, in reality it is just another exercise that you have to endure and get it over with to start the training day. I recently had a training day (Activate-Critical Inc ..read more

 This year has been a bit of a milestone in my adult life.  First, on January 3 of this year I was promoted to Sergeant and by the luck of the schedule I was able to land on afternoons, basically skipping midnights, which is a gift for a not so young 50 year old.   The second is that I completed my PhD in June and the diploma is sitting in my living room (walk in the robes next week).  Third, the biggest jump in pay is from Sgt 1 pay to Sgt 2 pay after a year, which will be January 3 and I will have credit for 27 years of service January 8.  So unless a miracle ha ..read more