Why do police do their job?

He pulled you over because he is paid to uphold the laws of the land. Not just the ones he wants to or believes in, but all of the laws of the land.

There are many reasons. Some want to make the world safer. Some want to feel powerful, some are trying to get promoted to detective. The reasons are as varied as there are officers.
On a side note, not everyone has your poor work ethic. People who work for me have to work independently all the time. If they had your attitude towards work (and some have) they wouldn’t work for me very long. Eventually their true colors are reflected in their production.

@marinelife I was not pulled over, some other poor guy was.

@Judi I am one of the best workers you can find, my record proves it… however, I will some times get burnt out and go hide away a little, all workers do in one way or another.

@poisonedantidote If police officers didn’t give speeding tickets or tickets for failure to yield or whatever, the accident rate would skyrocket. You don’t like police officers because “the lack of a boss on the scene means he pulled you over because he personally wanted to pull you over.” He pulled someone over to keep the rest of the population safe. Your dislike for police for doing their job is, well, disturbing. I hope you are never broadsided at a red light by someone who decided not to stop because the police didn’t have a boss with them and they wouldn’t pull you over.

@missingbite Yea, It’s not like there is a fear of death that keeps us from thinking we are F1 racers.

Lets not forget, with police handing out tickets people still speed, people still smoke weed, and people still kill one another. If you introduce police you dont stop speeding, you just add police to the problem.

I’m not trying to be a dick btw… these are honest questions. I don’t understand on a fundamental level anymore why cops do their job. I can’t even beging to imagine what would motivate these people, or what reality looks like in their eyes.

@poisonedantidote I know you aren’t trying to be a dick. I believe what motivates them is that they believe they are helping most of the people by stopping those of us that don’t follow the law. I also believe they are right.

You are correct that people are still going to speed and smoke pot. Some people like myself, slow down when I realize I am speeding because I don’t want a ticket. If there was no threat of a ticket, I may not slow down and in turn endanger more people.

A lot of professions don’t have a boss watching them. Mine is NEVER around but my life depends on whether I do my job correct or not. I would bet most police officers are very self driven people in all aspects of their life.

@poisonedantidote I’m sorry but I’m glad some of the people out there don’t think like you. And I’m not talking about small jobs but really important ones. How would you feel if a paramedic would think like you when you had a car accident? No boss around so why should he give a crap about saving your life. I think you get the point.

I do get annoyed by bosses sometimes when you can’t take a break or when you do take your legal break to see him roaming around with a disappointed look on his/her face.

As for the police officers I think not only upholding the law but trying to make the world a better place for all of us.

It’s really not that tough to figure out if the cops are doing thier job. If you complete an 8 hour shift with no tickets and everyone else has a couple hundred, somethings wrong. Most of the tickets these days are used as revenue source for the city/county/state. When times get tough, they figure out how to write more tickets. Government at it’s best.

Damn cops are always on a power trip…

The reality is people are cops because they have a desire and passion to serve their community and uphold the laws that are in place. If all LEO’s shared your mentality for why bother pulling people over, there indeed would be no reason to have a Police force. But the cold reality is there are people that break the laws we have and we need a Police force to enforce these laws to prevent our cities from becoming a non-stop procession of people running red lights! ;)

For the record, if I’m not mistaken, some police officers have a quota to meet, when it comes to speeding tickets and all. They have to hand out a certain number a day. So even if they have no boss supervising them, they still have a job to do.

Someone would have to correct me on this though.

Being a cop is a career though, it’s not like an every day job that Mr. Everyone can get. You gotta study and train for it anshit. I’m assuming that people working as police officers have some kind of motivation when they plan to become one, whether or not they end up liking it, and what kinda cop they become. Also I’m pretty sure a shitload of cops look the other way when it comes to speeding or kids puffing on a joint.

I think some get into it in order to push people around. Cops around here are some of the sexist racist most homophobic shits around. They are on a power trip and show nothing for it. I also hear (from prison research) that many of the guards in there ‘got into it in order to beat the shit out of losers’.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir ; Both of my son in laws are guards at prisons in California. They DID NOT get into it to beat the shit out of anyone. It is a horrible job and the reason they do it is because it was a way, without a college degree, to make a decent living for their family. People have complained at how much California CO’s get paid, but how much would they have to pay any of you to dig through shit for contraband, get spit on by known AIDS patients, have shit and piss thrown at you, enter a room full of murderers and rapists unarmed, and be in a place where there is absolutely no love, and is totally depressing?
Believe me, these guys don’t want to cause problems for the prisoners, they just want to go home alive every day. In the event of a riot, they all know that the guard who was the biggest ass hole will be the first to get killed and none of them want to be that guard.
It’s not like they show on the movies. They don’t want to power trip, they just want to keep everyone safe, the prisoners and their fellow guards included.

@Judi Of course, obviously, there are people that are cops or guards who aren’t idiots. And my information isn’t from movies. My information is from hundreds of open ended interviews with inmates in NY and with the guards in NY prisons. One of my PhD professors does research around why guards are so upset now that some of the changes have them be nice to the prisoners rather than assholes.

poisonantidote….............

I hope this answers your question. It is true that we do not have a supervisor looking over our shoulder for 8 plus hours in a day. This is what maturity and sworn duty is all about. This is why a thorough applicant background check is so important on prospective police officers. We know our mission and are our own bosses for 98% of the time.

All departments have slackers. Its up to the supervisors to weed out these people and replace them with a more reproductive person. In my department, we are accountable for every minute of an eight hour shift. We have Activity Sheets that are completed for every second our police vehicle is not moving. This is called accountability and rightly so.

In my department, we have never been given a “quota” for anything, including traffic citations. If an officer is doing his job, the average traffic citations for a day is three. Working radar can mean many more.

It is so difficult to be selected as a police applicant for my police academy, that no one wants to be in a position of losing the good pay and benefits, thus we need no direct supervision. We know our job and what to do.

I will admit that not all police departments are not as functional as mine. There are only three accredited police departments in the nation and mine is one of them. Having an accredition means your department is meeting strict guidelines. Its an honor to work for an accredited police department. It also means the officers are working at a higher standard for the safety of the public.

We are grown, mature adults and our swearing in ceremony covers all the bases of our job mission. This is why we do not require supervisors. Also, its because we love the job and not only to write traffic citations, but also to keep the public safe and to be there when you need help.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir ; I Hope you didn’t take that personally at all. I know I could never do that job. I am just way to compassionate and it would break my heart. One son in law has developed high blood pressure and other medical conditions.
I think there needs to be a balance between compassion and safety. When I was younger(teens) I thought it should be my life passion to design a penal system that works. The recent (last 20–30 years) trend away from reform and towards longer sentences obviously was not the answer. Packing the worst of the worst together in the same place just makes the moderate worse. One thing I do know, is if you reduce guards pay, the only people willing to do the job would be the stereotypical ass holes who just want to kick butt. I think California CO’s are the highest paid in the country. That may be why my experience is so different than yours.

@poisonedantidote why shouldn’t a cop pull you over when you are breaking the law by speeding, regardless of whether his boss is there or not… I almost don’t understand this question.

@Jellie the question is not only about getting pulled over for small things. And believe me you do not want police to enforce the laws to the letter or else we’ll all have to pay fines ^^

I have plans to become a police officer. My reasons would be
1. I don’t like when people break the law. Law is law. Made to be followed not broken.
2. Many times when the law is being broken someone is being endangered. I don’t stand for innocent people being endangered for stupid reason such as recklessness and people “just trying to have a good time”. If someone wants to endanger their own life that’s fine and dandy, but when someone else is at risk or being bothered by it that’s where I draw the line.
3. It’s their job to enforce the law. Do you really want to live in anarchy?
4. When you let people get away with small stuff they’re more likely to do worst thing as time progresses.
5. I personally can’t stand it when people break the law. What makes them so great that they can break the law? I’ve always wanted to do bad things for fun, or just to take the easy way out. But do I. No way! They need to learn that crime provides a harder rode for them if they get caught.
Shall I continue, or do you get it now?

@Hibernate I see this more a case of being opposed to certain laws than the actual LEOs themselves. If you don’t see the utility of a law (eg. speeding) then it is likely you will react to being pulled over very negatively.

@bluejay everyone breaks laws, even cops.

@Jellie maybe you haven’t saw all the laws [you should read read them all and see a lot of them are sorta dumb]. Police laws help a community but not all are that relevant. For instance when a woman calls the cops because her husband abuse her verbally the police can’t do anything about it. He can’t get a fine for it unless neighbours complain too and if they just see it as “a one time thing” they won’t say anything. They can’t arrest him either. Complicated situations like this prove laws should be specific.

@Hibernate that’s exactly my point. Frustration against cops doing their duty is actually a frustration with the actual law itself.

And no one has read all the laws.

It’s true, so very true. Though the laws apply even if we aren’t aware of what they are about. Just living somewhere “forces” you to obey them.