Is Policing The Toughest Job In America?

Is Policing The Toughest Job In America?
By: Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.

There seem to be a lot of pissed-off cops.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States lost over 25,000 local police employees, and the number is higher if you include state agencies. Police agencies throughout the country are complaining that the number of recruits is dropping. As a result, they are lowering standards.

Some cities report they are approximately 1,000 officers below authorized levels. Some cities are reporting over an hour’s wait time for police officers to arrive, which has an obvious impact on crime reporting and public safety.

All of this is indicative of problems law enforcement officers face. Is the job of being a police officer so difficult as to persuade potential applicants not to apply and thousands to leave? If so, what’s the impact on citizen safety and the delivery of services?

Part of the problem is the unrelenting negative media coverage of police use of force. But many in law enforcement believe that force (or the threat of force) isn’t because of overly aggressive cops; it’s more an issue of uncooperative suspects or hostile people they interact with.

Repeated surveys from the US Department of Justice indicate that police use “or” threat of force is rare, two percent of 50-60 million yearly police encounters. Citizen surveys are supportive of law enforcement based on trust and fairness regardless of demographics. 

So what are the reasons that being a cop has become so hard?

When I was a police officer decades ago, the great majority of the people I interacted with (including those I arrested) were civil and compliant. It was rare to use physical force. But today’s environment seems different.

Data indicates that 42 percent of police shootings involve people in mental health crises. In most of these cases, it involved potential or ongoing acts of violence.

As I progressed through the justice system, I discovered that mental health caseloads tripled in parole and probation and correctional agencies.

Pew’s analysis found that adults reporting co-occurring serious or moderate mental illness (hereafter “mental illness”) and substance use disorders in the past year were far more likely to be arrested (emphasis added) compared with both those with mental illness alone and those who didn’t experience any mental illness or substance use disorder.

First, we need to establish that all available data indicates that the great majority of people with mental health or substance abuse issues will not engage in criminal activity. But what I’m hearing from today’s cops is that interactions with the public are far more intense than in previous years, possibly based on people using drugs or alcohol or having emotional problems.

There is immense controversy regarding police interactions and the use of force. The simplest of exchanges can explode. According to national polling from the USDOJ, two percent of police-citizen contacts involve the use “or” threat of force.

Per Bureau of Justice Statistics research, more than half of all prison and jail inmates had mental health problems. These estimates represented 56% of state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners and 64% of jail inmates. Being these are self-reports, the actual numbers are higher.

Add substance abuse and histories of violence and data stating that most correctional offenders come from troubled backgrounds (i.e., child abuse and neglect, brain injuries, exposure to violence, sexual abuse as children for female offenders) and we begin to understand the dangers and difficulties of police officers making stops and arrests.

So in the final analysis, police officers are interacting with an immense number of people with a wide array of mental health and substance problems. Not covered in this article are the physical and developmental disabilities prevalent in our society. The rate of child abuse and neglect within the offender population is considerable.

It takes an extraordinary police officer with immense skills to wade through these issues and make the right decision every time. When I was a cop, I discovered that it was almost impossible to make the right call every time I interacted with the public. With the loss of police officers and with society piling on additional duties (i.e., school security, red flag laws, event security, mass shooting prevention) being a police officer IS much harder than ever.

Making a mistake now means that you are on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Do we provide the training necessary to successfully deal with the array of issues listed above? No. Do we provide cops with the less-than-lethal weapons designed to incapacitate with minimal harm? No.

Is any of this an excuse for bad behavior on the part of police officers? No. But I have seen mild-mannered cops dedicated to equal and constitutional law enforcement lose their tempers when a criminal threatened his family with violence.

Maybe it’s time to make sure that every police officer in America has the skills, training and equipment necessary to successfully interact with people with troubled backgrounds. Maybe it’s time to attend to the mental health of cops. Maybe it’s time to understand the high suicide rate in law enforcement.

Maybe it’s time to understand the risks cops take. 50-60 officers are feloniously killed each year. Over 79,000 law enforcement officers were assaulted while performing their duties.

Maybe it’s time to stop stereotyping all cops as brutal based on the mistakes of a few. 

Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.is a retired federal senior spokesperson. A former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs - University of Maryland. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Past police officer. Aspiring drummer. Operator of CrimeinAmerica.net. His book based on thirty-five years of criminal justice public relations,” Success with the Media: Everything You Need to Survive Reporters and Your Organization” is available at Amazon and additional booksellers. He can also be found @ leonardsipes.com