If you ask most veteran Law Enforcement Officers how long it takes to become a strong counter-narcotics or gang officer, you will find answers usually falling within a five to twelve-year range, and usually more specifically around ten years. That is a significant amount of time required to train and develop to become and effective operator. The same concept applies to the military as well. Our Staff Non-Commissioned Officers (SNCOs) who have a wealth of experience that they have earned over the last decade of non-stop deployments are easily comparable to those veteran cops.
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www.ted.com is a place that I often turn to for fresh ideas. Hearing the thoughts from experts in their field is a great way to learn. As you are seeing in the content here in The CP Journal, we are not unique. We don’t take credit for doing the scientific research behind what we teach in Tactical Analysis and we also weren’t the ones to put these 6 domains together for the first time. We just want to find ways of applying that information to help our military, law enforcement and security personnel stay left of bang.
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If your occupation involves the possibility that you could get killed or that you may have to save the life of someone else, you don’t have a job. You have a profession. Being a professional is a term that gets thrown around quite often, and it is usually reserved for that person who does not accept mediocrity, but instead puts in the extra time and effort to be the best. Even in fields where everyone should display those characteristics, like the military or law enforcement, not everyone is a true professional. There will always be those that are content with maintaining the status quo, that don’t have the drive to better themselves, which may be due to them enjoying the respect earned by having the title of Marine or Soldier or Police Officer. They aren’t willing to go the extra mile to separate themselves from their peers. This blog and site is not for them. This blog is designed for the true professionals.
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I have been asked the exact same question at the end of every class I’ve taught: “I want to become a better profiler, so where can I go to learn more about this?” This site is one such place and we can recommend a number of books that will help you out. Before we do that though, the question I have for you is why? What’s the ultimate goal?
For some of you, including myself, there is no end. You could easily spend the next decade just reading the vast amount of books and journal articles out there and still find new ways to apply the skills that they teach you. But there has to be some sort of interim goal to guide your efforts, right? It was only a few days ago that I got asked a question that made me realize the first step that every new profiler needs to strive for.
I had just wrapped up an instructor development session with a few of my instructors at Pizza Port and was recapping it with my girlfriend when she asked me, “If you saw something about to happen, would you stop it or let it play out to confirm your prediction?” The Marine in me immediately said of course I would prevent it. But she stopped me, reminding me that she said before the act happened. That took a minute to think through.
