Lesson9 Police Life
The average citizen in the United States has very little personal contact with the police. Contacts most frequently occur in two contexts: Americans sometimes approach a policeman to ask for street directions; and police sometimes stop a motorist for speeding or some other traffic violation. Neither of these situations is usually violent or life-threatening.
However, the life of a policeman in a large American city can be both violent and life-threatening almost on a daily basis. This is especially true for police assigned to patrol the poorest sections of the city where most violent crimes take place. Here police routinely come in contact with drug dealers, armed robbers, muggers and the like.
If a policeman is exposed for too long a period of time to these types of people from the lowest level of society, they run the risk of being injured or of developing a prejudice against all the residents of the poor districts of the city. For this reason, the police chief regularly changes policemen's assignments so that they can escape from the tension and danger of patrols in the ghetto. These other assignments might be deskwork or controlling traffic.
patrol 巡逻
mugger 行凶抢劫者
ghetto 少数民族聚居的地区,贫民区
警察生活
美国普通民众很少与警察有私人接触。大多数接触经常发生在两种情境下：找警察问路时，和因驾车超速或违反其他交通规则被警察拦停时。
通常这些情形都不会有暴力发生，也不会危及生命。
然而，美国大城市里的警察生活几乎每天都面临暴力和生命危险。对于负责巡逻暴力犯罪多发的城市最贫穷地区的警察来说，尤其如此。这里和警察日常打交道的都是毒品贩子、带武器的抢劫犯、走私犯和诸如此类的人。
如果一个警察太长时间置身于这类来自社会最底层的人员之中，他们会有受伤或对城市里贫困街区的居民形成偏见的危险。正因如此，警察局长定期调整警察的任务，让他们远离巡逻贫民区的压力和危险。其他任务有可能是文书工作或交通监管。 |