Compassionate Police Work- article

“Compassionate Police Work”

By Lt. Joseph Pangaro

Having served my community for 24 years, I have come to some understanding about this career in law enforcement and the things we do. Our profession calls on us to be the calm during a storm, the voice of reason in unreasonable situations and the emotionless authority that makes things better. These are high ideals for mortal men and women. From the time we graduate the academy we are told we are simply observers of happenings. We are not personally involved in the events we encounter. We are told the horrific scenes we see and the destruction of peoples lives we witness are part of the job. The pain and suffering we see people living with are not our pains and suffering. Don’t take it home with you. Forget about it, ignore it.

That sounds easy until you are called on to tell someone their husband was killed in a senseless car accident; or watch helplessly as a mother cries over the dead body of her drug addicted child; or see precious innocent little children used and injured by the worthless adults in their lives. These are all terrible situations, we as law enforcement personnel, have to see and live with everyday. We are taught to push those images out of our minds, leave them at work and move on. The culture of law enforcement encourages us to believe we can just move on from these things, but I don’t think it really works that way. I believe that these default positions build up and take a toll on us over the years. They wear us down emotionally.

 I point to the sobering statistic of law enforcement suicide. Every year in the United States criminals kill between 100 and 150 of us. This is a staggering reality and tragic part of our job. What’s worse is that we kill ourselves at twice that rate, almost 300 police suicides a year. That is higher than any other profession and there is a reason. I believe that reason is the common practice of moving through the painful, emotionally draining situations we face every day, and trying to ignore them. We are tough guys and girls. Those things don’t bother use. Right?

Cop humor is famous in our circles. The things we say and the jokes we make at some of the scenes we end up at would leave the people outside the law enforcement speechless. If they heard some of the comments and wisecracks we make they would run out of the room screaming, convinced we were crazy. Cops all know this humor is not callousness. It is a way to deal with the things we encounter and a way to have control over that which we can not fix or make better. The key here is understanding that this dark humor is a coping mechanism, not a “dealing with it mechanism”. The two phrases are very different and so is the emotional truth of the situation. It is between these two phrases and the real life places we live that damage us. Not as cops but as people.

This is where the concept of compassion and the understanding of how it fits into our lives must come into play. The compassion I am talking about is not simply feeling bad for someone, or being upset that they are in a predicament. It is an all encompassing emotion that has attendant actions. For our own good we must seek out this compassion to help us, not just to live through these difficult situations, but to survive them over the long haul.

One way to seek out compassion is to see people for who they are, regardless of why they have come into out lives. Developing compassion for all the people we come across should be a goal. Extending it to the victims we deal with, to be sure. They deserve out attention and priority. A harder place to extend compassion is to the bad guys we deal with. They don’t usually engender our warmest thoughts and they have done something bad.  It is here we can try to change our thoughts and actions. First it is the decent thing to do; after all we are the good guys and girls in any given situation. Treating the defendants with compassion helps us buy revealing the decency in us. People end up in bad situations for many reasons. Admittedly, most of them of their own doing, but sometimes just because of problematic lifestyles. That does not excuse them of their actions; we all have to be accountable for our choices. My point here is simply that some people have made very bad choices based on the hand they were dealt. Anyone can find themselves in a bad spot at some point in their lives. We all know people like this and some of us have those people in our own families. Treating these people with dignity and compassion speaks more about ourselves then them.

 Next, and most importantly, we must be compassionate toward ourselves. We must change the culture of law enforcement that ignores the emotional scars the job can leave on your soul.  We must address these situations, accept the horror of them and talk about it. We are not too tough to be moved by the death of a child or the collapses of someone’s life. The purpose of this self compassion and facing the terrible things we see is not to make us “Touchy feely” cops, or to get in touch with our nurturing sides, but to help us address the negative feelings that come with the experiences we have. Once we address these feeling head on, we can put them into perspective, which will take away their power over us. It is only then that we can move on without damage.

Our career provides us with and unprecedented glimpse into the world of human interaction. It is a double edge sword though. On one hand we have a “Back stage pass to life”, we see things and go places that most people will only hear or read about. On the other hand we sometimes have to do our businesses in the depths of people’s cruelty to each other. It is an honor to be in law enforcement and a great trust the people of our society have given us. We must not allow the rigors of the work ad the fact that we are placed into some very bad situations, to deprive us of the joy this life has to offer. By making these changes in our police culture; perhaps we can save some of the three hundred brothers and sisters who die by their own hand each year.

After 24 years on the job I have made my peace with the evils people do to each other. The idealistic beliefs of my youth have matured over time. I have come to accept the fact that I can not save the whole world, but what I can do is make small differences in the lives of people I encounter. In this way I help them and take care of myself. We all need to take care of the person inside. Everyone of the officer who have killed themselves calls out to us. We must listen and learn from them. We must start a dialogue that is long over due.                    

 What do you think, I’d like to know.    

Lt. Pangaro can be reached at:  jpangaro@yahoo.com