Why I want to be Join Law Enforcement

Being in an academy, I am constantly asked and instructed to remember why I want to be in law enforcement. The first reason would be the obvious choice in that I like to help people. I was raised by a family that believes if you have the means to help someone, you should. Not for a reward or a favor in return but because it is the right thing to do. Now I know I won't be able to help everyone I deal with on the job but helping even one person who needed help is worth it to me.


Another reason I want to join this career field is my family. Now I do not have a whole lot of family in law enforcement but those that are have helped in my decision but it is my family members that are not in law enforcement that really influenced me. I am aware that bad things can happen to the best of people because there are bad people out there willing to hurt good people. I know that is a broad statement and the typical "I want to catch bad guys" speech you would normally here but its true. I want to do my part in taking those that have no regard for the rest of society off the streets and put away so they can get any help they may need to become better themselves or just stay isolated away from the rest of the populace, especially my family.


Speaking of family leads me to my next reason and the last I'll talk about, the family atmosphere and teamwork of law enforcement. When you work an extremely stressful job were at times your life is in danger and your depend on you coworkers to make sure you get home every night, a pretty strong bond is formed. Growing up playing soccer, I have been part of a team my whole life. I wanted a career that would allow me to continue being part of a team in which I could depend on others who could depend on me as well. This type of atmosphere helps drive you to get better and be better.  I am a pretty loyal person and there isn't much I wouldn't do to help my family and friends.


These three reasons are only three reason I would like to join law enforcement. There are many other reasons that are a little more selfish like driving a car with sirens, chasing people, good benefits,  and all the cool gear. Those are perks to look forward to but I wouldn't be honest if I said I wasn't thinking of them.

District Attorney's office

On of the things I have noticed during my internship is the fragile but important relationship between law enforcement and the DA's office.  Sacramento county is backed up in case work and the DA's office wither not taking certain cases or pleading out with almost no punishment for certain offenders. This pertains to the insurance fraud division as well. Because there are so many cases of insurance fraud, not all cases are pursued and people simply get away with it. Putting it as simple as possible I would say that as long as a person doesn't commit a major case of insurance fraud they will not be prosecuted and even then some of the larger cases are turned down because the DA will say there is not enough evidence. There have been incidents where detectives have been working a case for a over a month and believe they have all the evidence they need to make an arrest and the DA will deny a warrant request because the case wouldn't be an "easy" win. Now I say these things based on my perspective of listening to the detectives. I do not believe the DAs are just looking for easy wins to boost their resume, I believe the issue again lies in the amount of cases that are being tried and the courts being backed up. To be cost efficient with the budget, only bigger cases with strong evidence are being considered for pursuit.


Part of my duties as an intern is too look over fraud claims sent in from Insurance companies. reading through the claims I am able to tell which claims the department will be able to pursue and which will be turned down due to the amount of loss related to the claim, no injuries, or lack of evidence to investigate.


Too many criminals, not enough good guys.

Down Time

When I first started the internship I was lucky enough to join when there were multiple field operations I could help with such as the search warrants. The last couple of weeks have been a little slower around the office as the detectives wait to chase a new lead or gather more information. Usually this allows me the down time to catch up on other assignments such as creating evidence boxes and writing "fake" reports off of cases that aren't being worked yet.


If it gets really slow I try and ask the detectives to fill me on one of their cases that they are working and listen to how they plan on pursuing it and if they think they can get a conviction or not. I was surprised to find that there are quite a few cases in which a detective and his/her partners will spend a lot of time investigating just to have the case rejected by a District attorney or not even reported to the district attorney cause there was not enough information or evidence gathered to make an arrest. This doesn't happen because the detectives did anything wrong but simply there wasn't enough evidence to prove anything. It is not like the television shows where they catch the suspects almost every time or find some sort of evidence with every lead they follow. A majority of the work being done is from a desk or a phone.