Disadvantages Of Being An Officer

Being an officer, you use a lot of discretion and doing this simulation really helped me understand the word ‘discretion’ better. Using the scenario of pulling somebody over, you have to listen to the tone of the person’s voice, and their facial expressions. In the first scene, the driver was going 10 mph over the speed limit in a residential area, but no children where outside. When I approached the vehicle, the driver seemed apologetic, and understood that he was speeding because he was in jeopardy of losing his job. His record was clean, other than a few minor speeding tickets that have already been taken care of. There was a dent in the front fender of his car, so I also had to take in consideration on whether he was always a speedy driver. It was also very noticeable that he had a family to take care of, and a full speeding ticket would impact him financially. In the second scenario, the driver was rude, and didn’t seem apologetic, and he even knew how fast he was going in a residential area.
For the driver, getting a citation with a hefty fine could be a long-term fine if not taken care of right away. His license could be suspended, and his fines could end up being bigger. A short-term consequence could be that the driver might have to go to driving school for a day. One day of driving school sound so much better than having a suspended license for several months. Being an officer, the pressure is on you to obey the laws as well. If you don’t issue some sort of warning, or citation, a long-term consequence could be termination. Living in a community, there are a lot of people, and especially children. Long-term consequences could be deadly. A speeding driver could kill an adult, or worse, a child. Short-term consequences are something that could be fixed easily. If a speeding driver hit a mailbox, or dented a car, those things are replaceable, and easy to