This is a significant participation opportunity not a paper assignment although you will earn participation points by writing about your police ride-along experience.

You will earn 5 points for each page your write about your experience and up to 10 points for each page that is particularly thoughtful and informed by course readings and extra credit opportunities related to law enforcement. Please post your writing into the dialogue box rather than as an attachment. You can post your ride-along experience any time up to midnight the day our final exam is scheduled. (We don’t have a final, just presentations of research that day.)

Please put the name of the police department and officer in the subject line of your post.

You can ride-along with any police department you want. See police department websites for instructions on how to arrange a ride along. For the DeKalb Police Department, the information is available here:

When you arrange the ride-along, let the contact person know that in addition to the ride-along you have some questions you want to ask the officer about their background, job, and experiences, so you want to make sure that the officer has time for that in addition to the ride-along.

Before the ride-along make sure you read the police department’s website to familiarize yourself with the department. This background will improve your ride-along experience, help you ask informed questions, and keep you from asking questions that are answered on the website, thus leaving you time to ask questions that are not answered there. You can also follow up on things you read on the website, asking the officer how these relate to the work they do, what they mean to them, etc.

Listen to what the officer says while on the ride-along and observe what they point out to you as well as make your own observations on what the officer is doing and how they do it, as well as on the behavior of any other officers or people with whom the officer interacts.

Use our police-related readings and extra credit opportunities to prepare for the ride-along and to inform your observations and questions. Here are some questions you can ask the officer:

1. How long have you been a police officer?
2. How long have you worked for this department? (if this is not their first job, where did they work before?)
3. Why did you decide to become a police officer?
4. What aspects of the job to you like most? Least? Why?
5. What do you think the public most needs to know about your job?
6. What does community policing mean to you? (If you practice it, how do you practice it?)
7. What’s the most dangerous situation you have encountered?
8. How often to you have to use force in your job? What were those situations? What happened? (Have you ever had to draw or fire your gun, use tasers, or apply a choke hold? Have you ever been shot at or attacked with a weapon?)
9. How have police shootings and protests against those affected you? the department? policing generally?
10. Have you had good and/or bad experiences with courts? If so, what are they?
11. Do you think the 2021 Safe-T Act is going to improve the administration of justice? Why or why not?
12. What advice would you give to a student thinking about becoming a police officer?