Police aren’t the bad guys, are they?
Don’t parents want their children to have respect for the law, and its upholders? So why do parents regularly try to convince kids that police are scary? Why do they tell them that we’re there to lock them up and punish them? Why is it that every time we do a foot patrol through the local shopping centre, invariably at least one parent points us out to their young children and says something along the lines of – “Look, there’s the police. They’ll lock you up if you don’t behave yourself/ stop your tantrum/ do what I say.”
NO! Please. No. You do not want your children to be scared of us. We are the ones they should run to, not run away from. We will protect them. Please, do not use police as a threat. If you are unhappy with the way your child is behaving, then you be a parent and set the boundaries – don’t abuse our power and use police as a threat. We are not the bad guys.
Of course, police should be respected. But there is a huge difference between respect and fear. People often confuse the two because some people can only gain respect through fear. But not police. We are the keepers of the law. The thin blue line that helps society be civil, and keeps lawlessness and anarchy at bay. We are the good guys.
I was once on a foot patrol through the local shopping centre with a colleague. She is a grandmother, petite and smiley. A lovely person who volunteers to do talks for community groups and local schools. Something caught her eye as we patrolled past a clothing shop, and she took the opportunity to duck in and have a look. It’s not called window shopping when you’re in uniform – it’s called a ‘stop rob’. Shopkeepers generally love police coming into their shops.
My colleague headed straight for a back corner of the shop, attention focussed on a particular top. I trailed along behind her. We hardly noticed a teenage girl of about sixteen browsing in the same corner. Then the girl saw us and quickly drew our attention. She looked at us in utter horror. She froze in her tracks and her bottom lip started to quiver. My colleague and I immediately thought we had sprung her shoplifting. My colleague attempted to engage her in conversation, ask her what she was doing. She was terrified. She started to hyperventilate and sat down on the floor.
My colleague tried to administer first aid. I went looking for anyone the girl might be with. I found her mother, and tried to explain what had happened.
“Oh, she’s scared of police,” the mother replied, matter-of-factly.
Scared? What an understatement. We were simply in the same place as her and she just about passed out in fear. What will happen to this girl if she ever needs police help? How will she be able to tell us about a crime committed against her if she hyperventilates at the sight of a uniform? I guarantee she grew up with someone telling her police would lock her up. And she’s not the only one.
Please, for the sake of your children (may they never need us) – if you see the police, by all means point us out to your children. But say “Look there’s the police, give them a wave”.
And if it’s me, I promise I will wave back.
Do you tell your children to be afraid of the police?
J.M. Peace is a pseudonym for a serving police officer on the Sunshine Coast. She is a mother of two and her debut crime novel, A Time to Run, is out now. You can purchase it by clicking here.
Top Comments
I can’t believe that police don’t understand why people fear them, are they so conditioned to believe they’re the good guys that the fact people fear them shocks and upsets them.
Let’s start with the first issue, civilians are supposed to blindly respect and trust police for no other reason than they were able to complete 30 weeks of training. It takes 30 weeks of training for a person with a minimum year 10 education to be given power over our freedom and sometimes our lives. This is an appalling fact when you consider it takes a minimum of 5 years at university to be given the power to save a life. Police officers like to state the fact they’re regular everyday people, well there’s the issue, regular everyday people shouldn’t have power over life, death and freedom. These people didn’t get 99 on an enter score, these people aren’t innovators in science or technology, these people don’t build, create or heal, they are doing a job any regular person can do. How can a regular person be trusted with a weapon that can take life, how are we supposed to respect and look up to a person that has no accomplishment other than 30 weeks at an academy.
The next issue is the laws police uphold and enforce. Laws are supposed to reflect societies values but as we’ve seen in the last 50 years laws have gone from a way to protect society to a means for revenue raising and having more control over every aspect of our lives. This is the core issue with policing today, they enforce laws that no longer represent our values, and in most cases don’t even represent their own values. I ask again ‘how can we respect someone that enforces something they don’t even believe in, how can we respect someone that enforces laws with a complete disregard whether the law is just, unfair or even cruel.
These people are given the power to kidnap, assault or even kill us and they are upset that we fear them. Police are trained not to trust us so isn’t it right that we don’t trust them?
I don’t claim to have all the answers but I do no one thing, the gap between police and civilians will keep getting wider because police don’t serve and protect us anymore, they serve and protect a government that lost touch with the us a long time ago
I must admit until recently I used to comment to my son in more of a joking manner than anything "look there's the police, they're coming to get you!" But didn't realise I was wrong for doing that at the time. It's not until I recently asked him about different scenarios, ie what would he do if he ever got lost in the street or if someone attack mummy whatever, and the answer he gave disappointed me. He says he would go up to anyone who has kids with them or a lady but he wouldn't go up to a police officer because they lock everyone up or take them away. This is when I changed how I talk about the police if they are around. I explained that they only lock up adults who have done bad things and that it is mum or dads duty to tell kids off if they do wrong. I tell him "look there's the police, wave hello or say hi" and he does not giggle and hide behind me when he sees them now. He used to be afraid of the police van at an open day we went to because he thought he would get locked in there but now he says he would like to go in there to see what it's like.. I'm glad I corrected things before it became a lifelong fear for him.