I was born, baptized, and raised in a devout Roman Catholic family. The first eight years of my formal education was in a Roman Catholic grammar school. I was an altar boy and received high grades in my religious education class. I am very familiar with martyrs and martyrdom. I was also targeted by a sexual predator who was a priest and one of my confessors. I have undergone three years of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy to overcome the results and damage done to my spirit from my encounter with that predator-priest. The priestly frock worn by this predator-priest was his introduction and a deceptive covering that allowed him to beguile and betray a young, naive boy who was the object of his lust.
I am not a believer in martyrdom. If an individual broke into my house and tried to harm, injure, or kill my wife, would my agápē love for her paralyze me? On the contrary, I hope it would motivate me to defend her with extreme prejudice. I also believe that the individual is permitted to defend himself or herself with extreme prejudice when confronted with physical harm. Does this position negate everything that I have proposed in this treatise? Quite the contrary is true. What about the wives, husbands and children of the police officers whose lives are at risk every day? Do they not have the same degree of attachment, affection, and love as I have for my partner?
Agápē reality does not mandate martyrdom. To nurture the other to achieve the highest level of humanity humanly possibility requires accurate accountability consistently applied. A life cannot be nurtured if it is destroyed by another human being. Passively witnessing the traumatization of another human being by an aggressive force is not nurturing that threatened life. Defending that life is nurturing. Defending that life may mean stepping up to face a lethal threat. Self-preservation while defending another life may require the taking of the life of the aggressive offender. The taking of that life in appropriate situations is holding that aggressive, inappropriate individual accountable for his or her action. Understanding all of this is precisely why police officers must be trained and trained well and why trainees must be evaluated accurately to ensure that the training has been well ingrained.
My son, the police officer, is a very honorable man not because he wears the uniform but because of his consciousness. He is honorable because of his consciousness, and because of his consciousness he wears the uniform. He has served in the armed forces and has experienced warfare in a foreign country. He, therefore, has more experience than I with regards to facing lethal confrontations. We should respect all individuals in our armed forces. We should respect all individuals in our police force. In the end we should respect all life, but our police must face more dangers than I have to face on a daily basis. Their family must live with that real threat every day. I thank them for their willingness and courage to take up such a challenge especially in the supercharged emotional atmosphere of today’s world. With all of my deepest gratitude, thanks!
What also must be highlighted is that agápē reality requires appropriate, consistent accountability. This is true for every profession and form of employment. Medical professionals, doctors and nurses, teachers, lawyers, judges, electricians and plumbers, etc. are all human beings. All human beings are capable of incorrect behavior. All human beings are capable of breaking the law. This is true because all human beings have unique consciousnesses of different levels of depth and development which greatly impacts their decision-making practices. Accountability, however, is the evaluative process permeating our judicial system. Almost all, if not all professions, have had some individual who has broken the law or has been suspected of breaking the law. It is the function of the police to arrest and it is the function of the court system to conduct the process of assessing if such individuals did in fact break the law.
I do not believe that individuals are born criminals. I do believe that not all births are perfect. I do believe that biological errors occur in the formation and birthing of some individual babies. These biological errors combined with nonlinear elements and the sensitivity of initial conditions might predispose individuals to become more susceptible to criminal behavior. Otherwise criminal behavior is an outcome of the process of the individual’s learning behavior. Putting aberrant biological factors aside, criminal behavior may be due to the naiveté or ignorance of normally developing individuals.
Babies are born into an energetic, fully engaged reality that preceded them before birth and will continue unabated after their death. The first order of business for newborns is to learn about the reality into which they are born. While there are many similarities among the individual presentations of reality to particular individuals, there are also very distinct and unique elements of the particular presentations that are unique to each child’s experience of reality. A simple demonstrative example is that a child born into a family that has great wealth is without question certainly different significantly from an individual born into a family which is desperately struggling to simply put food on the table. While there are similarities — each child must eat — there are significant differences; one child eats a substantial amount of healthy food for every meal every day; the other child does not. There are many differences that impact the learning process of individuals — one individual is an only child; another is one of five brothers and sisters.
Aberrant biological factors and the diversity of initial conditions aside, every human newborn is naive and innocent. Naiveté is reduced or dispelled through the education of learning by doing. Hence babies drop objects from their high chairs. I have had a couple of situations in my life when I asked a coworker or friend if they needed help and received the response, ” No, I’ve been here before.” This response alerts the receiver that this is not a new situation for the other person. It is my understanding that every new situation has a high probability of putting the individual in a position of being naive. This understanding is particularly important to newly trained police officers who are just beginning to amass their experience in dealing with domestic abuse cases. In talking to friends about policing, domestic disturbance calls are highly unpredictable and as such present a high degree of risk for injury to police officers. Experienced officers know that each situation might be a uniquely new situation which makes that officer naive to some elements present in that particular situation. Officers answering a domestic disturbance call should always be on guard for the unexpected.
I have taught in different schools both public and private and in different states. Each time I began in a new school, I would, in private, drop my head, chin to chest, and think to myself, “Damn, I have to establish my reputation with this new student body and faculty all over again.” While every school was a very good institution for learning, each one had unique elements that differentiated themselves, thereby putting me in a state of being naive about that particular school. I had to learn about the school just as the school had to learn about me. Every new situation entered has a high probability of putting the individual into a new state of naiveté even if that person is experienced in handling that type of situation. Having taught in many different situations, under many different administrations, I have learned how to cope with my naiveté. The first step in coping with my naiveté in new schools is to recognize and embrace the fact that I may be naive about some of the elements presently at work in my new teaching assignment. This recognition and acceptance prepares my consciousness for the possibility of making mistakes that I will need to recognize and act accordingly by owning my mistake born of naiveté and promising to not make that mistake again.
Accountability in agápē reality is critical because accountability is the means by which naiveté is corrected and reduced. If naiveté is intrinsically connected to new situations then the only way to dispel naiveté forever in one’s life is to never enter into new situations — always live in the old status quo. However, Life is dynamic; not static. Static reality does not change. Hence Life is full of changes. The obvious observation of dynamic changes in Life is the years of contending with the reality of puberty. Hence, Life demands that individuals adapt to change. Learning, therefore, is mandatory for individuals to experience the fullness of Life in all of its diversity.
I have been told that there are two principles or concepts which are significant in policing. One is voluntary compliance and the other is the officer’s discretion. In my understanding these two principles work in tandem. Society would be highly chaotic if every individual decided that the laws of the land had no meaning and therefore could be broken whenever an individual so chose. Everyone could function under the catch-me-if-you-can principle. In this scenario, because there would be no voluntary compliance, every individual would have to be forced to comply with the laws of the land. Looking at the whole of society, as voluntary compliance decreases and catch-me-if-you-can increases, the number of police officers would have to increase by necessity. Would this not necessitate a police state or policing via armed forces? Would this not feel like the citizens were living under a form of military occupation? In contrast, if every citizen or individual living in that society voluntarily complied with all laws, then would there be a need for any police?
The reality in the United States is that everyone does not adhere to voluntary compliance all of the time nor does everyone embrace the catch-me-if-you-can principle for all laws. The reality is that some do and some do not. Harmony is best served if voluntary compliance greatly overshadows the catch-me-if-you-can attitude. This being the reality within the United States, police officers, working under the principle of officer’s discretion, can assess if the individual confronted will be likely to function under a voluntary compliance of the law which was broken or if the individual under question will continue with a catch-me-if-you-can attitude. Officer’s discretion allows the officer to decide if a warning or a summons is warranted. Additionally, before assessing the voluntary compliance issue, the officer must assess whether or not there is enough evidence to warrant an arrest. The severity of the offense or behavior under scrutiny is also critical. All of this and probably more enters into the principle of the officer’s discretion regarding the overall evaluation of the situation, a situation that is very fluid and replete with the unpredictability of human behavior. If naiveté is at the heart of the behavior of the individual under concern, and the individual is assessed not to be a threat to others (or self), and the officer assesses that this individual shows every sign of embracing and practicing voluntary compliance going forward, then a warning can be given rather than arresting that individual. There may be much more that enters into the officer’s discretion that I have not delineated but hopefully I have included enough information for the reader to understand the importance of officer discretion and voluntary compliance. The goal is for all individuals to embrace voluntary compliance.
Ignorance is a different issue regarding policing. Ignorance is significantly different from naiveté. Naiveté is about lack of experience and learning and therefore can be rectified with learning and experience. Voluntary compliance is more easily achieved when naiveté is at the core of the issue. Ignorance is potentially much more difficult to resolve and replace with voluntary compliance. I do not use the word ignorance as a synonym for naiveté. I use the word ‘ignorance’ as a noun derived from the verb ‘to ignore’ — the turning of one’s back to what that an individual knows to be true. Ignorance has more willfulness to it, whereas naiveté lacks willfulness. Individuals do not decide to be naive. They are naive. Naiveté is a condition of being or a state of being; however, an individual can ignore learning. A student can refuse to attend to his or her studies or play hooky from school and these are willful acts. They are not essentially naive even though some adults might say that such individuals are naive about the importance of education. This would also be true of criminal behavior, if the individual who commits the crime is naive to the effects of criminal behavior to the fabric of society as a whole or to the community of which the criminal is a part. Would I say that this criminal is naive when it comes to criminal behavior? The criminal does not care about the effects of criminal behavior in general nor of its relationship to his or her community. Both the student and the criminal know that their behavior goes against the law of the land. Both do not care. Both only worry about being held accountable for their choice.
It is the willfulness of ignorance that produces the great difficulty in correcting criminal behavior. After being arrested, found guilty, and jailed, some criminals continue their criminal behavior. Why? Perhaps I am oversimplifying the criminal and criminal behavior. I have worked as a mentor for the Restorative Justice Project of Maine, meeting and talking with repeat offenders who are high-risk candidates for committing crimes once being freed from jail. For some, the greatest difficulty to be faced is the negative influence of the people with whom they were tightly connected before the arrest, conviction, and incarceration.
I tutored an individual to improve mathematical skills so that an entrance test would be successfully navigated to enter a community college. I watched him work hard to improve. Together we not only improved his mathematics, but he successfully applied for and was accepted into a very good community college. A grant to cover tuition, books, and housing on campus was secured for when the release from jail was achieved. He was not too old and appeared to be focused enough to truly etch a new life path for the future.
Unfortunately, this fellow was arrested again shortly after being released. It is difficult now to know exactly what that individual was thinking or feeling at this point in time because I have had no contact with him since the arrest. What I know is that this individual did not choose to live on campus as planned. Instead he returned to live with his family. Based on the conversations that I had with this individual, I believe that this individual was tightly under the influence of significant others populating his past and he expressed to me many times that some of these significant others desperately needed his assistance. The completed plans for community college were never initiated.
This anecdote demonstrates how nonlinear elements and chaos permeate reality. I am not trying here to definitively expound on the true nature of the criminal or criminal behavior. I am only trying to present a clear difference between my understanding of the characteristics of naiveté and ignorance and what critically differentiates the two.
As the willfulness of ignorance increases, the ability to overcome that ignorance decreases. Those individuals who refuse to acknowledge the damage done to the fabric of society via criminal activity are all the more difficult to rehabilitate. Such individuals are emboldened to repeat their behavior if unchecked. However, checking their behavior does not automatically change their criminal behavior. There are many other elements that feed into this difficult problem, like inappropriate child-rearing and the learning of criminal behavior. Additionally, ignorant law breakers become reinforced by secondary and primary gains that occur through the absence of being held accountable for previously committed crimes that reaped substantial material wealth.
It is my hope that I have given the reader enough information to understand the following statement: A police officer’s biggest challenge is to confront a seasoned, ignorant criminal that has no intention of changing his or her way of life. This is a person who operates under the principle of catch-me-if-you-can. This is an individual who has no regard for the other and only cares about the self. These are bullies. Such individuals can be male or female. Some are young. Some are old. These are individuals who must be policed. There are varying degrees of this type of person, from extremely lethal to menacing, from obnoxious to early developers and so forth. Each and every one may instigate a situation with an individual or individuals that would precipitate a call to the police. The risk of personal harm to others and the police increases as the criminal type moves toward increased risk of lethal criminal behavior.
The police officer, however, upon entering the scene of a call does not know what he or she is going to confront and the initial moments of the encounter are critical. Many police officers have been killed in routine traffic stops at night for what would appear to be a minor traffic violation. This raises the question: Can a police officer simply ignore criminal behavior? If a crime is being committed, can the police officer turn away and avoid the required confrontation? There is no doubt in my mind that there are at least one or two officers who have done so once or twice. Police officers are human. This is a fact that cannot be ignored. In fact, I believe this to be a critical big plus for our police officers. It must also be remembered that police officers are humans who have been trained. Additionally, it is critical to know that multiple crimes may be happening at the same time at different locations, which means that a decision must be made about which call should be attended to first, resolved, and then discharged, freeing the officer to take the next call for assistance.