Why We Stay
By Chief Danny Watson
City of Darlington Chief of Police
Why do some police officers just throw their hands in the air and just say enough is enough? This is a complicated question with no one answer that will completely explain it. It is as varied as the types of police officers themselves. Many of them are from different backgrounds and places. It is safe to say that no two police officers are exactly alike or in most cases even close. The reasons they leave are as varied as each one of them are in personality.
One of the top answers that you will hear is a lack of pay. If you take an average of pay for law enforcement officers and compare it to manufacturing jobs you would find that police officers are woefully underpaid. When I went through the police academy in the early 1990’s, one of the things the instructors repetitively told us was that more than 50% of the classroom will be out of law enforcement in the first five years. They stated the reason that most of us stay is because we enjoy the work or more often than that we just stay – despite having no idea why we do. If you are in this for the money you will be very disappointed. Pensions are no longer even something a lot of police officers can look forward to after long years of service, so there is that issue. As cities and counties continue to have shrinking budgets law enforcement salaries are not really a priority. When the benefits and salaries shrink so do the pool of officers because many decide they just could not live on what an officer makes.
“I want to help people but can’t.” Another of the reasons that police officers leave is a feeling of helplessness. We are placed on the street in the role of problem solvers yet in most cases we are ill equipped to deal with these problems. A tremendous number of these problems are social problems ones that we are not trained for or funded to manage. Caring people who become police officers take this as a personal affront to their self-image, and some eventually just give up. Feeling like you fail over and over again no matter how much effort you put into helping is agonizing. Overburdened court systems that are likely to dismiss cases as often as they try them are extremely devastating to police ranks. Working a case where a victim truly needs justice and feeling you have failed to bring that about makes the job too difficult to stomach for some.
Feeling isolated is another of primary reasons police officers leave. Once you become a police officer you are thrust into a very us against them kind of paradigm. People treat you differently and act differently toward you if they know you are a police officer. Currently in today’s atmosphere a lot of police officers are called racists more often than they are called officer. This is done so even when that is the furthest thing from the truth. There are very few officers who ever have to shoot anyone in the line of duty, yet suddenly we are all killers. The percentage of officers who are involved in officer involved shootings is miniscule. Even when an officer is doing their best, they are frequently demonized. It’s like being placed in a no-win situation every day. You are viewed as a demon or worse as an assassin by some when you view yourself as trying to be a guardian angel. Experiencing a sense of being demonized and isolated is just too much for some police officers so they leave.
Politics are another of the reasons officers decide to leave the profession. If an agency has a chief or sheriff change it is likely the new person will turn their world upside down. Constant leadership changes are very stressful situations. When the new agenda of the incoming political power is so different than the last one an officer feels as if they have to completely reinvent themselves. Police officers have become easy targets for the media and others. Officers have begun to feel they have less rights than anyone; and in some cases, they are correct. Everyone else is afforded the opportunity of being innocent until proven guilty. Yet when a police officer is involved in any situation they are often found guilty in the court of public opinion even when exonerated in a court of law. This, once again, causes many to move on to another profession.
People will try to anger us and are surprised when we bristle. We are hit and expected to not hit back. We are called numerous names – which are too foul to mention here, yet we are supposed to maintain our composure 100% of the time. People ask us to act better and be better than everyone else yet are unwilling to even hold themselves anywhere near that standard. We are expected to do a job no one else wants for less pay and one that many will say “I don’t know how you do that, I sure couldn’t.” Even when all of this is related most will say, “Well, that is the profession you chose”.
So many officers make a choice and that is to turn in their gear and seek something else to do. Even in the military the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen get to leave the combat zone. When you are police officer that zone is waiting just outside your door every day.
However, through all of this, there are still those who chose to stay. Despite the long hours, low pay, separation from family during natural disasters and times of strife we still come to work. The fifty percent of us who are still here are likely to always be here. Why we leave and why we stay are the two different sides of the same coin. It often balances on that thin edge that lay between the front and the back. Truly without any reservation I can’t for the life of me say why I’ve stayed much less why many choose to go. Maybe at the end of the day it’s because I’m just too stubborn to quit. Most likely it comes down to a conversation I had with my father many years ago. He said, “Son, why after serving in the military would you choose to do this for a living? You have given enough. You are much too smart and much too capable to do that for a living.” I remember it as clear today as if it happened only moments ago. I said, “Well Dad if not me, who? Sometimes you just have to be the one to answer the call”. He never asked me again and was proud of me, just like I am sure so many other parents are of their children who grow up to wear the blue. I guess sometimes it’s just simply what we do.
Chief Danny Watson MPA FBI NA # 228, Chief of Police for City of Darlington, has been on the Darlington Police Department since 1994 and Chief since 2011.
The News & Press will be sharing updates and opinions from Chief Watson on a regular basis; you can also keep up with the department on their Facebook page: Darlington Police Department.