The Badge Is Borrowed

I began my career in law enforcement in 2001. Like most young officers, I entered the profession believing I had some idea of what the job would require. I knew there would be danger, difficult decisions, long nights, and people who would not be happy to see me. I knew I would have to learn the law, department policy, tactics, and how to function under pressure. What I did not fully understand was what the job could do to the person wearing the badge.

Police work does not simply test what you know. It reveals who you are. It exposes your pride, fear, impatience, anger, courage, compassion, and character. It places authority in your hands and then repeatedly gives you opportunities to use that authority well or poorly. Sometimes those choices are made during critical incidents with lives hanging in the balance. More often they are made in ordinary moments that no one outside the profession will ever hear about. They are made in the tone you use with someone who has cursed at you. They are made when you write a report and realize that a few carefully chosen words could make you look better than the truth would. They are made when another officer makes a mistake, when a supervisor corrects you, when you disagree with a lawful decision, or when police culture tells you to remain silent. They are made when you have every legal right to exercise your authority but still must decide whether doing so is necessary, wise, and just.

After more than two decades in policing, I have become convinced that some of the greatest dangers officers face are not always the ones approaching from outside the uniform. Some develop quietly within us. Pride can disguise itself as command presence. Contempt can be mistaken for experience. Anger can feel like righteous indignation. Cynicism can present itself as wisdom. Loyalty can become an excuse for silence. Authority can slowly become entitlement. An officer may continue performing the duties of the job while gradually losing sight of the person who first pinned on the badge.

These dangers affect every officer, regardless of rank, assignment, experience, or religious belief. For the Christian officer they raise an additional question: Has the person wearing the badge been shaped more by Christ or by the culture surrounding the profession? Faith does not remove the handcuffs or the sword. It changes why they are carried. The officer is a steward, not an owner. The badge is not a crown, and the citizen is not a subject.

"For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason."

Romans 13:4

"Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant."

Matthew 20:26

A servant who will not confront evil fails the innocent. A man who loves the sword and forgets the servant begins to use authority for himself. The work requires both. That tension is the argument of these two books.

This volume, Part 1, takes up the work itself. It starts with why policing matters and moves through the servant and the sword, the character nobody sees, how we see and treat the people in front of us, who is actually using the badge, and the courage required to stand between. It ends when the call clears. Part 2 takes up what follows you off the call: the inner life the report does not capture, restraint, leadership, and finishing well. You can read either book on its own. They are written so that one does not require the other, but they are meant to be read in order if you want the full picture.

The foundation is biblical. The book is not written only for Christian officers. Integrity, courage, humility, restraint, accountability, and respect for human dignity are not church property. They are essential to good policing. I will not hide the verses or apologize for them. I also do not want any officer to believe he must already share that foundation before he is welcome here. If Scripture is not your authority, test a chapter the way you test a policy. Does it make you a more trustworthy officer, a safer partner, a fairer decision-maker, a person your family can still live with? If the answer is yes, the chapter has earned its keep.

If this book helps you become a better officer and a worse husband, father, wife, or mother, it has failed.

I did not write this because I have always carried the badge correctly. I have made decisions I am proud of and others I would make differently today. I have been corrected, investigated, and held accountable. There were moments when a less honest account would have been easier. I told the truth anyway. Some of those decisions affected the course of my career. They did not have to take my credibility with them. A mistake is often survivable. Dishonesty may not be. Cameras do not create integrity. They only record the absence of it.

Experience does not automatically produce wisdom, and promotion does not automatically produce leadership. As a supervisor, I have had to direct scenes, evaluate officers, correct mistakes, make decisions that affected careers, and balance accountability with grace. I have not always found that balance. Additional authority does not reduce the need for humility. It increases it. Much of this book was written from lessons learned that way. Some came through success. Others came through failure, correction, regret, loss, and the slow realization that being technically right is not the same as acting wisely.

This is not a tactics manual, though tactics matter. It is not a legal guide, though officers must know and obey the law. It is not a replacement for policy, training, counseling, or pastoral care. It is not an argument that police officers are always right, or that criticism of the profession is always unfair. I have watched officers place themselves in danger for people they had never met, show patience to people who offered them none, help families through their worst moments, and carry burdens the public may never fully understand. I have also seen officers become arrogant, careless, dishonest, cruel, or indifferent. The badge does not eliminate human weakness. It can magnify it.

This book is not an attempt to use Jesus to defend everything police officers do. It is an attempt to place the officer, the badge, and the culture under a higher authority than the profession. That examination has been uncomfortable for me. It may be uncomfortable for you. The questions in these chapters are not limited to whether an action was lawful or within policy. Those questions are essential. They are not always the final measure.

Was I truthful?

Was I fair?

Did I exercise restraint?

Did I treat the person before me as someone with inherent value, even while holding that person accountable?

Was I protecting the innocent, or defending my pride?

Did I remain silent because silence was wise, or because speaking required courage?

Did I use my authority for its proper purpose, or to prove that I was in control?

For the Christian officer there is another question beneath those: Did my conduct reflect Christ, or did I simply do what the law, the policy, or the culture allowed?

This book is for the rookie, the veteran, the supervisor, the officer sure of his faith and the one who is not, the one who is exhausted or angry or numb, and the retired officer still making sense of what the work gave and what it took. Read slowly. Sit with the questions at the end of each chapter. Discuss them with someone who knows you well enough to tell you the truth. Do not answer only as the officer you want others to see. Answer as the person you actually are when the call is difficult, your patience is gone, and no one seems to be watching.

You may not agree with every conclusion. I do not expect you to. Police work is too complicated for easy answers. I am offering a foundation from which to examine your decisions, your relationships, your authority, your leadership, and your character.

I am writing this now because I am close enough to retirement to understand that the badge is borrowed. One day every officer gives it back. I have begun to think less about what I accomplished and more about what I will leave in the people whose lives crossed mine. What remains is the effect we had on people. I hope the officers I supervised became better officers and better people because I was part of their lives. I hope those I encountered were treated fairly, even when they had to be arrested. Most of all, I hope I carried the authority entrusted to me in a way that honored God more often than it honored myself. This book is part of what I want to leave behind.

Whether you are learning how to wear the badge, carrying wounds from years on the street, leading other officers, or preparing to remove the uniform for the last time, consider more than what kind of officer you are.

Consider what kind of person the work is shaping you to become.

Consider how you carry authority when no one is praising you.

Consider whether the sword remains under control.

And consider whether the servant can still be seen in the person holding it.

Robert Thompson