Thoughts of Course. Gourse!

• essay on police as a subculture by Ralph Brown, 4/4/98
  
  

Many police officers become arrogant. We get a pressed blue uniform. We are taught to be in control. Most often we are underpaid. And street cops in Anywhere U.S.A. see the dregs of society. When do we get called? When there is problems. When there is domestic violence. A six pack of beer each night? Thank God for alcohol! And pay? The majority of us do not get paid too well. So we are the law. And often feel above the law. So, we are addicts, we take bribes, we do, many of us see ourselves as above the law. Peers talk about arresting individuals for DWB, Driving While Black (and that's the nice version).

In short, we are a subculture that is cynical. Some cops feel they can not be touched. So they got a couple of the Rodney King guys. BFD. Mostly, we get off. We do protect each other in court. We don't get totally jaded. We are human. Some of us remember to love. Sometimes. Pay us more. Rotate our duties while building us into our communities as Japan does. Treat our addictions without firing us. We are human and often we have been placed, day after day after day, into your sewer. Legalize the drugs that we spend most of our time on in a stupid futile effort to contain. Use the saving to provide treatment for addicts.

We reflect you. And we are angry, addicted, and cynical.

So do your little study. But Damn It! Do something positive with it. Shove the results down the stupid beaurocrats thoats. Don't just get published in some prestigious journal and than congradulate yourself. Cut the crap!

• police subculture... from a daughter and sister's point of view by Shelley, 4/18/98