How Is Psychology a Part of Your Law Enforcement Career Choice - Personal Statement Example

How is psychology a part of my law enforcement career choice? Psychology is a part of a large number of careers and professions because human psychology depicts human behavior. There are many professions whose interviewees ask behavioral assessment questions to the candidates because the behavior of an employee matters a lot. Positive and healthy psychology of an employee is important not only because this optimizes his/her tendency to positively connect and relate to the peers, colleagues, and work environment in general, but is also the fundamental predictor of the positive ways in which the employee connects to the clients and consumers, and builds a positive image of the organization in the society. Employees from basic to highest levels in any organization have a certain impact on the outcomes and achievement of organizational goals. If an employee’s thought processes and ideologies are not consistent with the mission and vision of an organization, that employee is likely to hinder rather than facilitate organizational work. Law enforcement is one of the fields whose foundations are laid on the subject of psychology. Psychology is an integral part of law enforcement because it is, in fact, an applied form of psychology, with the intent being to recognize, regulate, and prevent negative behaviors. The first and the foremost part of law enforcement is the identification of the need of a law. This need of a law originates in a need to stop the spread of evil and criminal activities in the society. In other words, law making fundamentally depends upon what behaviors are deemed acceptable and what are deemed objectionable in a certain culture. Recognition of negative behaviors requires correct judgment skills that are determined by the psychology of the law makers. People joining any sort of profession related to law enforcement, whether it is serving in armed forces, police, or being a judge need to be assessed psychologically. In order to ensure that the right candidates are hired in any kind of armed forces or police, the test model is largely based on the very psychological assessment. Candidates giving the interviews are asked to quickly tell how they would deal with a certain situation or behave in the given circumstances, and only the ones found to be healthy and strong psychologically are recruited into these professions. The fundamental purpose of law enforcement is regulation of negative behaviors. This imparts the need for law enforcers to establish such laws that are effective in regulating the negative behaviors, and can also be implemented effectively. Regulation of negative behaviors is a very critical task because different people involved in the decision-making have different psychological approaches toward how a negative behavior should be regulated. There is often lack of consensus and disagreement between the parties involved in such decisions because different people based their opinions on different factors; some people establish religious teachings as the fundamental predictor of the law to eradicate a certain negative behavior whereas other people consider culture or historical norms as the predictor. The quality of a law designed to regulate a negative behavior is just as good as the psychological strength of the people, entities, and agencies making that law. Discussing the impact of values on psychological approaches, Myers (2011) writes, “Psychology is value-laiden…Our values can also color “the facts.”…what we want or expect to see can bias our observations and interpretations” (Myers, 2011, p. 20). Regulation of a negative behavior is about establishing the limits. For example, while drinking is considered as a negative behavior in general because of its known negative impacts on health as well as its prohibition in many religions, many countries particularly in the west allow drinking to people older than a minimum age, which is usually 18 years. There are psychological reasons behind allowing elders to drink provided they drink alcohol remaining within the prescribed conditions. For example, alcohol when consumed within safe limits improves mood and reduces distress, which is good for psychology. Similarly, there are psychological considerations behind the regulation of any negative behavior. The ultimate goal of law enforcement is to prevent negative behaviors. Preventing negative behaviors can be even more daunting and challenging than regulating negative behaviors because the bar of restrictions is essentially raised in prevention. Negative behaviors cannot be prevented unless the punishments for them are severe enough to scare the people away from indulging in the criminal activities. However, the extent to which punishments can be severe is debatable. People having different psychological approaches suggest punishments of varying levels of severity for the same crime. “One person’s rigidity is another’s consistency. One person’s faith is another fanaticism. Our words – firm or stubborn, careful or picky, discreet or secretive – reveal as much about us as they do about those we label” (Myers, 2011, p. 20). As a police officer, the decisions I make in everyday life, whether they are as ordinary as whether or not to allow a subordinate leave for two days to as critical and important as how to deal with a teenager who made a failed attempt of suicide, originate in my psychology. My psychology is a product of a range of factors that include but are not limited to my genes, the environment and culture in which I have been raised, my life experiences in general and particularly those that I have had in the initial five years of my life, my theoretical knowledge, my religion, and my norms and values. While I, like every responsible police officer, know the importance of learning the laws and updating myself constantly on any changes or modifications made in the laws applicable in my country, yet there are many situations in which I have to make decisions solely on the basis of my own conscience and psychology because laws are generic and do not offer guidance on each and every matter. Since my thought processes and decisions are fundamentally based on my values and my psychology, the impact of psychology on my everyday life both in my profession and outside it in my personal life is tremendously huge. References: Myers, D. G. Psychology in Everyday Life. 2nd Ed. 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