Moskos Reminisces Over Joining The Police Force

In the beginning of Moskos’ book, he reminisces over joining the police force in order to write about the experiences involved with being an officer. At first, the other officers did not accept him because they feared the intentions of his book. Their fear was that the book would bash and exploit the police force. The other officers would carefully watch their conversations around Moskos. Eventually, his colleagues and higher ranked officers realized he posed no threat, so they contributed their ideas. Although Moskos’ primary reason for joining the force was to advance in his academics, he felt bonded by natural brotherhood developed from his time with his fellow officers. The bonds he formed are unlike the relationships he has with

He describes the six months of training the officers receive and how it does not prepare them coming out of the academy. The training focuses more on breaking down a person rather than teaching trainees about the streets and how to handle nonviolent related situations. He also demonstrates that officers are ignorant on proper interactions with the community. Moskos criticized the academy for emphasizing on the hierarchal order of the institution, formality, and appearance over the course of six months, which could have been condensed into a week. Training did emphasize the legality of stopping and frisking a civilian along with the Terry vs. Ohio case. Officers were informed that they are allowed to justify their stops by pointing out the prevalence of drugs and violence in the community. This loophole allows officers to stop anyone in an area that falls under that category. Overall, Moskos and other trainees thought “the overall approach of the academy as ineffective” and that what was to come next was more informative and realistic of the duty of an officer (pg

This transition is viewed as a critical part of learning and building up skills for the job. Moskos believed this part was more valuable than what they have been doing in the academy. He included other officers’ perspective of the ghetto and the representation it gives its residents, such as the worthlessness of drug addicts and the desire to look and act like a ‘thug’. The amount of cases and interaction with drug addicts and drug related incidents are common in these areas. Some things that Moskos learned from this experience were the informal rules set out to reduce workload that would not be carried out in the courts. Moskos saw how much discretion officers had in deciding whether to make an arrest or not and what to do with the evidence or whether to submit it or destroy on the spot. Officers also have to learn how to get creative in reports in order to cover your tracks, while not perjuring yourself. In addition, there was the linguistic among cops as well as the community, which was crucial in communicating with them and interpreting things for what they really meant, especially in the