Best "police" forum that allows citizens? (civil, life, job)

[madison999]

Looks like there are quite a few, anyone have opinions on which are the best? As far as decent amount of traffic, hearing from active or retired leos...

thanks

[TamaraSavannah]

I don't know if there are any. I've been on a number over the years and sooner or later, they have tended to isolate either due to security reasons (such as NAVCOPS did after 9/11) or the need for active police to have a place where they can chew the fat without having misunderstandings by those who have not been in.......IMHO.

FURTHER, if your experience doesn't match the life they know, at best, they are not likely to react to you kindly. Many don't believe me because my experience, my entry was so out on the fringe, they can't believe it unless they see my credentials and recognition on the Net is not worth that kind of breach of security.

One further thing. Let me illustrate how that kind of world is different from that of the citizen. In the late Cold War, I was doing "Provost Marshal" (the USN term is Security Officer) duties...and belly dancing on liberty. One of the girls in my class was an immigrant from a Warsaw Pact country. The information security regulations of the time were very clear that ANY contact with someone from the Warsaw Pact had to be reported to the superior security agency and in my case, that meant NIS (now NCIS). Fortunately for me, as the Provost Marshal, I could contact NIS directly without declaring to the command the incident. The agent gave me a security interview and that was essentially it......though afterwards, I was wondering if I had invited NIS to take a more personal look at my life.

When I told my classmate, she was shocked. She thought that she had left such requirements back in her native country. The thing is, though, that when you work in intelligence, you just accept that there are people potentially looking over your shoulder, that could be watching you. That is just the way it is.

Similarly with police work. For all the things that one might do in their civilian life, that they might think is no one's business but their own, they may not have that kind of freedom if they are doing police work.

[StuartGotts]

I understand why they, police officers, would want to lock down discussion groups. They probably want to vent, share experiences and ask for advice without a bunch of trolls bugging up their conversations.

I have complete respect for good LE officers. It's a job I could never do. My only hope is that they feel the same way about bad LE officers as the rest of us do.

[madison999]

Wait, the ones I saw had certain sections for leos only, just asking if any particular ones are better in any way shape or form?

[Beenaroundabit]

There are many.

Officer.com has a lot of traffic and there are plenty of non-LEO's posting there. There is ony one sub-forum in which non-LEO's may not post, but they can still read/access it. But there are also several where non-LEO's are encouraged to ask questions ("Rookie Forum," "Ask a Cop," "The Academy," etc.). Moreover, all other sub-forums are open to everyone.

911jobforums.com is another good one, and is probably the best resource on the net for LE job/hiring information. All of their moderators and senior or retired troopers, local officers, and federal agents who have a LOT of experience. Their sub-forums are all open to the public, save one (which I don't think you can even see unless you have access) .

A couple of others are policeone.com and realpolice.net, but I am not very familiar with either. There used to be many, many LE forums on DelphiForums.

Couple of things:

1) I would state at the outset that you are not a LEO and that you are simply trying to learn something.

2) I would try not to ask questions like "why do cops need guns?" and "why don't you shoot people in the leg instead of center-mass?" Those are typical "dumb media" questions which get asked all the time by people who have no clue and no common sense, and they probably won't win you any friends on any of the web forums.

3) Cops are just people and are not perfect, so you'll have patient and understanding comments, but also impatient and/or rude, sarcastic ones. Like any internet forum, there are good posters and bad ones. LEO's are a reflection of every other group in our society, with good people and morons in similar proportions.

4) Because LEO's deal with human stupidity on a regular basis more than most others, they're not going to have limitless patience, so don't expect it.

5) These web forums are NOT agency-run, so cops can be themselves. Some may be professional, but others may not - as with any forum. They are not there to represent their agencies, but to communicate with one another, so they don't HAVE to act the same way as they might if they were talking to you in an official capacity. If you don't expect that, you'll be fine.

6) You won't see cops talking about ongoing investigations, cases, or discussing anything OPSEC (operational security)-related, so I would not even ask.

7) If any of these guys sense a troll or someone trying to stir up shi$, they'll jump on you pretty quick.

8) And this is just my opinion, but it seems as though most LEO's lean to the conservative rather than the liberal side. It depends on a lot of factors - like age, where they live and work, etc. But that's just been my perception.

But by all means, if you're trying to find out about the job and the folks who do it, reach out to these people and ask (intelligent) questions. That's about the only way I can think to close the rift that's been opening between LEO's and everyone else in the last few years.

[WhipperSnapper 88]

Police are citizens too. I think the term you're looking for is civilian, and technically, that wouldn't be accurate either, because peace officers are also civilians