Response To Alexis

Police officers serve multiple roles in their lives. They must have a home life while maintaining a role as a public servant, and also fighting crime. Within their home lives, they must remain a public servant due to the fact that they are constantly under a microscope with the public and they represent the department even when they are not in uniform. As a public servants, police officers are sworn to protect and serve their communities, but they must also be tough on crime. One role of the police officers is that of a public servant.  Some duties that would fall under the public servant role are directing traffic and settling neighbor disputes (Masters & et al., 2017).  Police as public servants can settle interpersonal disputes and reduce tensions that could lead to a crime if escalated (Huey & Ricciardelli, 2015).  The second role of police officers is acting as a crime fighter.  Some duties that fall under this role is responding to incidents, investigations of crime and traffic enforcement.

Police subculture is a set of beliefs or attitudes that is believed amongst most police officers. The beliefs within this subculture are not written rules but rather they are an understanding between the law enforcement community.  According to McDonald (2015), the views of police subculture are based on two influential factors, occupational and organizational.  Occupational environment suggests the development of surviving the stress placed on police officers by forming a suspicious attitude, which decreases the uncertainty with the dangerousness of their occupation (McDonald, 2015).  McDonald (2015) also credits the rise of community policing as a factory in breaking down the police subculture.  Community policing breaks down the barriers of police interaction with the community. As with most careers, police officers have ethical standards in which they must follow.  When police are unethical it places a wedge between the police and the community.

The Biblical themes discussed in this week lecture was licentiousness and legalism as it applies to the roles of police officers. Licentiousness rejects God’s moral laws and puts personal choices above all others including friends, family and the community. Legalism is where members of society show good external behavior and believe this will grant them righteousness. Both themes tie into another Biblical theme – sin, the reason we need the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system helps maintain crime, order, and justice to reduce the sinning within our world/communities.

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