Being a Cop is a Visceral Experience

I know this will aggravate some people. Hell, I know it will flat out piss some people off, but… it is what it is. The title of this piece makes a statement and, after reading this piece, if you disagree with me, please articulate why in the comment section.

Being a cop is a visceral experience.  What’s that mean?

Visceral is defined (by dictionary.com) as: characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect; characterized by or dealing with coarse or base emotions; earthy; crude.

Now before I discuss how being a law enforcement officer is visceral, let me first explain why it’s even come up and some other things in life that I believe to be visceral and then perhaps you’ll have a greater understanding of what I mean.

Recently I’ve seen, heard and read a lot of opinions from people who work around the law enforcement community. The important part of that is “around” the community. They aren’t law enforcement professionals and they never have been. They’ve never worn a uniform and they’ve never actually done the job. But since they have worked around the industry for some number of years, they somehow feel like they hold an expertise in how the job should be done. To me, this is roughly similar to a medical office receptionist telling a doctor or nurse how they ought to be doing their job. Working around an industry or profession does not give a person enough expertise in that profession to teach anyone how to do it. I’ve even seen it where people who have never done anything beyond journalism being hired to deliver training to law enforcement officers.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that these people have nothing of value to offer, but what they have to teach has to be taken with a grain of salt. They don’t truly know law enforcement work. To know the work, you have to have done it. You have to have put on the uniform, gone out and done the job, taken the risks, been in the fights, put the handcuffs on bad guys and dealt with all of the emotional turmoil that goes with (potentially) every shift.

Think of it this way: if you’ve been cut with a knife or razor, then you know how that feels. You know the pain first hand. You will forever be more careful with any sharp / edged device because you are fearful of being cut again. The pain and injury is known. If you’ve never cut yourself, you really don’t get it. You know that injury is bad; you know you don’t want to bleed; you can even teach proper knife handling. But if you don’t know how that cut feels, you can’t describe it to anyone and you can’t (realistically) teach someone how to cope with the pain or disfunction caused by the injury.

So, when I say that being a police officer is a visceral experience, that’s what I’m talking about. You can do a ride along but it’s not the same. Those who have worn the uniform and actually done the work have experienced emotions that can’t be inspired by watching or reading. It’s a job that you can only learn, in some ways, but actually doing it. And once the lessons are learned, motivated and filtered through the emotions evoked, you can’t ever unlearn it. It goes with you for the rest of your life and remains a part of you. You will find yourself in settings and situations and the emotions will come to the forefront unbidden. It will happen both on duty and off duty and in the least expected settings.

If you do the job long enough, these responses become instinctive and (almost) unavoidable. They will be incorporated into your behavior so that those around you begin to see your profession as your way of life rather than “just a job.” But let’s be honest: if it was just a job, we wouldn’t take the risks that we do. We wouldn’t make the sacrifices that we do. If there wasn’t an emotion (it’s called compassion) attached to the selfless service, we wouldn’t be the same people and couldn’t do the job as well.

So when I say that the job…. Being a law enforcement profession is visceral, I mean it. It’s not just the uniform that you wear and it’s not just how you patrol or what your demeanor is when you respond to calls for assistance. It becomes some inside part of you that takes a long time to release once you’ve reached the end of your career (so they say; I haven’t gotten there yet). And even then, I know retired officers who still practice many of the “cop” behaviors that helped to keep them alive throughout their career. I’m pretty sure it never truly goes away. It’s visceral. It’s felt. It’s integrated.

It’s one of the best most-thankless jobs you can ever have.