Police Officer Stereotypes

Professionalism is key for any career not only police officers. However, police officers deal with the community everyday who look at them as role models. The uniform has an extreme effect on the community and it must be portrayed in a positive light. Police officers run around in dirt, blood, and really anything you can think of. However, during the job it is important to clean yourself up if you get dirty. In addition, a police officer must be able to be differentiated from a regular civilian. They are differentiated through conduct and immediately by their presence. A professional image entails tightly tucked and pressed shirts, as well as pants. As well as lint and loose strands all removed. If your shoes are capable of being shined, shine them. During class Trooper Christie shared a story of a time when he was arresting a
man and he could tell the man contemplated resisting. When he cuffed the man, and asked why he decided not to resist, he responded, “you look like you crisp and know what you are doing, and because of that I did not think I could take you in a fight.” This shows how the professional appearance Trooper Christie portrayed allowed him to easily take the man into custody. This is a clear example of the importance of police officers projecting a professional image. As well as a professional image portrays a professional person. Police officers are tasked with extreme responsibilities and duties. Not everyone can be a police officer, therefore, we are held to a higher standard and that involves our professionalism in our image and our act. A big trigger word in the media currently is implicit bias, where basically it means we as people make an opinion or stereotype on people, events, and things.
These judgements are made subconsciously and we are not even aware we are doing it. This applies to the community’s perception of officers. People will have opinions of us just because we carry a badge. There are some individuals who we will not be able to change their minds. These people come from different cultural backgrounds, financial backgrounds, and ethnic back grounds that all have a different way they perceive the police. However, there are those who have no opinion or have faith in us to do our job. We can help influence these opinions by carrying a professional image at all time, as well as portraying a positive first impression. First the most part, the community deals with police officers when there is a problem. Therefore, it is important we portray a positive first image in order to help better a situation or relieve stress of the victim involved. For those who may not like us, it is important to have a positive first image to gain faith and confidence in the
community.