Steroid Use increasing among police.

[Shaun]

In athletics and sports it's mainly stuff similar to testosterone that people take.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Being a cop is having a personality that draws a fine line between being tolerant for some things such as people who are verbally upset, and absolutely intolerant against other things such as people who don't comply with lawful orders. Taking steroids fucks that up by screwing up your balance and even in situations where force is justified can result in you using more force than necessary. Steroids might make people stronger, larger, and faster, but it also has absolutely no place in law enforcement.

Your source for that is?

Source

Just to clarify I mean your psychological balance. It changes the hormones in your body. Thus, it will change how you react in situations.

[Lagmonster]

Question: If the problem is that in high-stress beats, a cop becomes 'obsolete' as a beat cop earlier in life, what would happen if you just raised the bar for required physical performance and take cops off the beat and put them in another role or area when they can no longer compete physically?

Or, similarly, run an 'exchange program' where the young, tough cops are employed in locations where physically demanding performance is required, and older, experienced cops are employed in locations where the population is comperably more sedate?

It would seem that this is the kind of problem that police forces would be aware of and, unless their hiring practices are in the toilet, would be able to compensate for on the HR level.

[RogueIce]

Question: If the problem is that in high-stress beats, a cop becomes 'obsolete' as a beat cop earlier in life, what would happen if you just raised the bar for required physical performance and take cops off the beat and put them in another role or area when they can no longer compete physically?

Or, similarly, run an 'exchange program' where the young, tough cops are employed in locations where physically demanding performance is required, and older, experienced cops are employed in locations where the population is comperably more sedate?

It would seem that this is the kind of problem that police forces would be aware of and, unless their hiring practices are in the toilet, would be able to compensate for on the HR level.

I would assume that the places where such physically demanding performance is required would be the "rough" areas of a town/city/whatever. In those situations, you would want experienced officers out there; they just might avoid the situation getting physical at all.

The problem with young, tough cops is that they're, well, young. They can be prone to make mistakes or react in situations that an experienced officer would not do. So it seems like, at best, you would need to strike a balance and just hope it's good enough. I know my local agency, while they do primarily one-man units, they also have "sector partners" or whatever the term is. Basically, another unit who'll be primary backup, I think is how it works. If possible, I suppose they could try and pair up experienced (but older and maybe not as physically capable) officers with the younger, relatively inexperienced officers.

[Keevan_Colton]

I suspect that rather a lot of the issues being raised in the last few posts wouldn't come up as much if there were always two officers at any given incident. Over here you never see a lone police officer, even for traffic stops, police always travel in pairs for everything.

[Broomstick]

Yes, well, here in America there is a belief that hanging various technological bits on our police officers, festooning them like Christmas trees, will make up for a lack of partner 'cause, you know, times are hard and we need to save money and if we just apply the thumbscrews a little more we can get more work out of fewer people for less money.

It used to be standard procedure for cops to work in pairs in the US, but not anymore. Yet another stupid change in the way we do things.

[Modax]

What about SARMs, (selective androgen receptor modulators) They are designed to have the muscle building effects of steroids with fewer side effects. If and when such drugs are proven to work as advertised, would you support making them available to police officers?