The majority of individuals who are unsuccessful in the police exams ignored one essential component to be a cop, thinking like one! A good number of questions during the exams center on issues that need a person to have a mentality of a cop.
This attitude consists of these 3 basic principles which will form a solid groundwork that can help candidates possess a strong foundation in making decisions which will help them answer challenging situational test queries.
Common Sense
Common sense is identified as sound thinking determined by the knowledge of the circumstance or specifics. Within law enforcement you have to make use of common sense to evaluate various situations, accumulate all the details before coming to a conclusion.
Here is an example, you are speaking to someone who is involved in collision, do you speak to them on the middle of the road or go to the sidewalk? Sound judgment demands for you to speak to these people on the sidewalk mainly because you’ll want to keep away from on coming traffic and prevent yet another accident.
Officer Priorities
Many of these priorities are furnished by the agency themselves, speak with a police officer with regards to their officer priorities.
In several instances, you’ll learn a need to apply both sensible judgment and officer priorities to help you make the appropriate judgement.
Here are the standard officer priorities according to it’s order:
Safeguarding other individuals Take care of public order Maintain the mandated rules Offer non-emergency support Maintain peace and order Maintaining traffic flow
Oftentimes police officers might come across different situations that has contradictory principles that is why officer priorities are designed to aid a police officer in making the appropriate judgement.
Police Hierarchy
Police hierarchy is set up to guide the government bodies to determine what strategy to take into consideration in a situation.
Here is an example of a police hierarchy:
Safeguard life Follow orders Defending property Keeping designated duties
As an example, your superior orders you to patrol a location, you then see an individual getting run over by a speeding vehicle that is outside of your area of jurisdiction, by adhering to the police hierarchy you are warranted to assist the individual who might be severely hurt since the number 1 priority on the police hierarchy list is to safeguard life.
Here are some strategies to apply these three key principles in answering situational issues.
Evaluate carefully and have a knowledge on the circumstance and ask yourself “Is there a threat to someone’s life which needs to be taken care of?” Never jump to a conclusion but rather persistently analyze the case and obtain more facts. A person’s thinking has to be dependent on facts collected, sensible judgment, police hierarchy and points of interest. Prior to moving to the subsequent concern, analyze and find out if you can have utilized the three key principles in responding. Have confidence in your intuition.
Through the use of these three basic principles, it can help you respond to questions which require you to utilize sound judgement, learn how to think like a police officer and you’ll become like one.
For further advise in careers in law enforcement and criminal justice visit Randy Jetterson’s site that has numerous articles about training for a police officer.