Effective Communication with Law Enforcement
Introduction
Communicating with people is an important part of everyone’s life. Due to the ability to clearly express their thoughts and listen, individuals can succeed and build relationships or accomplish what they want in negotiations. Psychologists know that most conflicts are not caused by insurmountable contradictions but by a banal inability to talk (Levine et al., 2014). However, of particular relevance is the etiquette when dealing with representatives of the police. Often individuals with their behavior and manner of speech provoke new conflicts and aggravate the situation.
Main body
First, individuals who behave defiantly and openly show irritation or disdain are provocative. Some even resort to insults, which can be criminally punishable. Unfortunately, numerous people do this, and in 99 percent of cases, it is unfavorable to them (Levine et al., 2014). Converting a police officer officers duties into a personal grudge against a person, such a suspect multiplies the chances of turning an unfortunate episode into a serious nuisance. In general, the state of mind during communication with the police officer is better maintained as in business negotiations, in which the individual is, by necessity – polite dignity (Levine et al., 2014). One should not go to extremes, such as ingratiating oneself with the police officers and calling them colleagues, because this always causes unpleasant feelings and irritation. At the same time, the golden mean, as in any case, can positively affect the resolution of many controversial issues.
Politeness is the main tool of the petty offender. If someone knows one is wrong, the best option is to admit it. In the same case, when a person begins to argue, demanding evidence, the situation changes dramatically to the negative side (Levine et al., 2014). Moreover, there are numerous cases when people say they have just been stopped, which is a waste of time. Such behavior just causes a desire to check longer and more thoroughly. The words always depend on the law-enforcement officer; for example, a phrase thrown out of place, a joke, or an insult is a direct provocation, which leads to instant harshness. There are phrases such as: “I am not obliged to have my passport with me,” “Show your ID card in unfolded form,” and “Repeat your rank and surname, name.” At first glance, trivial clarifications in a disdainful or boorish tone significantly affect the situation’s progress.
Moreover, not all people are calm and in a burst of anger, proving their case to the policeman, individuals often do not mix up their gesticulation and cause damage to the police officer. The major thing is distance, it depends on the situation, but it is much more pleasant and easy to communicate when the individual observes personal boundaries and behaves politely (Levine et al., 2014). Bad words, raised tone, rudeness, and provocation is, unfortunately, something that happens often, and it is necessary to react to them properly.
Aggression as a complex socio-psychological phenomenon always implies an environmental context that conditions certain actions and external manifestations of the subject’s emotional state concerning the other subject/object that caused the aggression and aggressive behavior.
Conclusion
In other words, the observed aggressive behavior will always unfold according to a certain scenario: cause – internal state – external manifestation. From the psycho-physiological point of view, any kind of aggression releases excessive potential, releasing the organism of excessive accumulated and unspent emotional energy (Levine et al., 2014). As it is known, superfluous emotional states that are not reacted in time and ecologically unlived emotions can transform and find their way out either in inner form through somatic diseases or in extreme form through aggression. However, police officers must act professionally, so it is important to learn to react correctly and calmly to even the most provocative statements. Such a statement is, for example, “Officer, you stopped me because I’m an Asian American”.
Reference
Levine, D. R., Wong, H. Z., Olson, A. T., & Harris, P. R. (2014). Multicultural law enforcement: Strategies for peacekeeping in a diverse society. Pearson.