NCJ Number
92528
Date Published
1983
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This film illustrates the difficulties police officers face while operating in a constantly changing environment, where their lives can be placed on the line without warning. The viewer sees the fears, frustration, pressures, and rewards experienced by officers on the job.
Abstract
The presentation is unrehearsed; nothing about it was reconstructed or staged. A film crew accompanied officers on patrol for 13 days and nights, recording incidents during this time -- a shooting victim, a suspected car theft, a domestic disturbance, a drug overdose, suspected night burglars, drunks in the park, an attempted suicide, a Spanish-speaking assault victim, and an abandoned baby. Among the dilemmas of policing that these incidents reveal is the futility of dispatching units to scenes of crimes for which reporting was delayed, the hostility expressed toward officers not as individuals but as representatives of a system, and the love-hate relationship most officers have to their work.