These NC law enforcement students see a broken system. They want to help fix it. - Raleigh News & Observer

There may be fewer of them, but students going into law enforcement today say they want to do police work for the same reason as generations of officers before them: to help people.

They just don’t want to do it in the same ways.

Here are some thoughts from second-year criminal justice students at Wake Technical Community College on their future profession. They were interviewed following an Investigative Principles class on the school’s Public Safety Education Campus last week.

Katya Bonthron: ‘I want to change the system’

Katya Bonthron, 23, of Louisburg, the daughter of a corrections officer, wants to be a crime-scene investigator. She likes the puzzle of it, she said.

“You figure out the big picture. You’re giving voice to those who no longer can speak for themselves.”

Bonthron, who said she already has a bachelor’s degree in criminology, believes “the system is broken. Police are trained from a military standpoint rather than one of community service. The Black Lives Matter protests have highlighted that, and also the need for more diversity in the system.”

Bonthron, who is biracial, said, “I want to change the system. I want to be part of the process.”

Bonthron was especially critical of what she called a “culture of silence” among law enforcement that can allow bad behavior to go unchecked and, she said, sometimes punishes whistleblowers.

“Criminal justice is a truly selfless profession,” she said. “Your job is to worry about everybody else. We need to return to that purpose.”

Carson Burdette: ‘There has to be respect’

Carson Burdette, 20, of Garner, always wanted to be a police officer. “I just wanted to help people and catch the bad guys,” he said.

After starting school in criminal justice, he said, he was struck by the words of a professor who complained about officers conducting themselves in a way that is “cold and disconnected, like it’s a job and a paycheck, and they just throw the book at whoever they can.”

Really, Burdette said, being a good officer means having good communication skills, being able to talk with people and connect with them.

He saw the news and social media coverage of the protests against police actions after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. He said he doesn’t think police work should take an us-versus-them stance.

“I will remind myself that I’m dealing with people who have their own lives, and who might be having the worst day of their lives,” Burdette said. “There has to be respect. As police, we have to learn not to take it personally.

“I see a lack of emphasis on the value of being personable, on being human. You have to focus on the needs of the person you’re dealing with at the time.”

Mica Ervin: ‘There needs to be respect’

Mica Ervin, 20, of Apex, is leaning toward being a forensic analyst who studies criminal evidence in a lab.

Ervin said she is disillusioned about the attitude displayed over the past year by some police officers and departments.

“There needs to be respect for victims, living and dead,” she said.

“It seems like a lot of police don’t care what they’re doing. It doesn’t feel like they care about their community.

“Police work should be more about the community than the police officer.”

Chris Karolowski: ‘They’re dealing with individuals’

Chris Karolowski, 19, of Apex, knew when he was a junior or senior in high school he would go into the family business. His father and grandfather were NYPD officers, he said. He would prefer to work for the FBI or for a tactical unit, “maybe a hostage-rescue team. Something that saves lives,” he said.

Karolowski said it’s good that officers in the future will get more training in North Carolina on how to defuse volatile situations.

If they have to go into a setting where they know people don’t like the police, officers have to manage their own emotions and not be hostile themselves, he said.

“Officers need to understand they’re dealing with individuals and work with that to keep things from getting out of hand.”

source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article255571166.html

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