February 2002 Volume 83 Number 2 "serving the protectors"
The Careers Continue
By Brett Williams

Brett Williams has tracked four police officers through their careers since they graduated in 1998. Three of them last spoke to the Police Journal in 2000. But will this third round of interviews reveal that they now see the job in a different light?

Donna Sampson has seen violence and the use of weapons become near routine in her Salisbury patrol area through the last two years. Baseball bats and knives have commonly appeared at the disturbances that she and her colleagues have attended.

And more than ever before, she has heard patrols – including her own – warned of firearms at the jobs to which they were responding.

Sampson, 36, has also seen the heavy inflow of raw probationers to her beat. Although respectful of them, she says their presence on the front line has heightened “the risk factor”.

So, what she calls her early-career naïveté has now given way to a healthy concern for her safety. She now lives her working life by a strict code: “Always play it safe.”

When she last appeared in the Police Journal two years ago, Sampson spoke of dealing with “much domestic violence”. That, she says, has continued, and the horror she sees in policing no longer surprises her.

“There’s some really angry people out there,” she says, “especially at domestics. And people tend to let little things get totally out of control.”

One heated domestic to which she responded – with a firearm warning – was simply over a car. To Sampson’s great fortune, no one produced any guns and she emerged unscathed.

Now a mother-to-be, she concedes the toughest jobs for her have been domestics involving children. “The hardest ones,” she says, “are where people are so wrapped up in their squabbles that they forget about their children.

“A patrol went to a job once and found two young kids outside in the rain while the parents were inside, drunk and asleep. I find them (domestics with children) really hard. You’ve got to make sure you don’t get really angry, because you can let it get to you.”

Sampson’s emotions, however, have survived the last two years’ police work. She has even surprised herself at times, with her ability to handle some of the most gruelling tasks.

She feels the greatest pressure when the front line is at its busiest and patrol numbers are down. “You can’t go rushing from job to job and not complete them properly,” she says, “otherwise you end up going back, and it ends up a mess.”

But does police work ever slow down enough to offer her some respite? “Not on the road,” Sampson exclaims, “and (off the road) you’ve got heaps of typing.”

Nonetheless, she stills sees her 1997 foray into policing as a great career move. She never imagines what else she might have done; and memories of her former job as a Braille transcriber have almost entirely faded.

In light of her pregnancy, she moved from patrols to office work at Salisbury police station last October. And, as she still found front-line police work exciting, she was disappointed to leave it behind.

She has not suffered from the rigours of shift work and has, for the most part, come to regard herself as a competent police officer.

“I’m confident in going out with someone junior to me,” she says. “Sometimes you still go to jobs and think: ‘What do I do here?’ But I’m sure people do that after six or eight years.”

Sampson still harbours concern – which she expressed in 2000 – about staffing levels, but regards her rate of pay as “good”. She has not taken on promotional study or internal courses. Nor did she seek stints with Sexual Assault Section or a domestic violence unit.

Her exposure to those areas as a street cop has discouraged her from applying to work in them. And she does not intend to sacrifice family time to take on any police studies in the future.

Sampson – who plans to take maternity leave in April – spends little social time with police friends outside of her job. But in her work, she finds some simple pleasures.

“It’s nice to see something work out for someone,” she says, “to see that their circumstances are better. That doesn’t happen a lot, but it’s good to see it when it does.”

But the last two years have not diminished the cynicism and suspicion that Sampson said the job had created in her. Those character traits have found their way into her private life, leaving her cautious about “who’s out there”, and whom she trusts.

Of her future, she hopes to reach senior constable rank and experience other postings. But as she also hopes to have more children, how long does she expect to continue in her career? With confidence, she says: “Until I retire.”

Not one colleague of Damian Britton could offend him with uninvited criticism of his work. He craves brutally honest feedback, and even takes offence when anyone fails to offer it.

To the determined 26-year-old, criticism is the best means through which to learn his craft and advance his career.

“Where some people might fall down,” he says, “is taking offence at criticism. I’ve always tried to elicit that sort of info from my supervisors, and senior and junior partners.

“If someone says you’ve done it (a job) perfectly, they’re lying. You can always do something better.”

And Britton’s approach has clearly paid off: he has realized his 1998 goal to win a detective position. He joined Sturt CIB in May 2000, and passed a 10-week detective training course in December last year.

Although he “had a ball” as a patrol officer, Britton wanted to move on from dealing with domestics and shoplifters. He figured that, through the “good pinches” associated with CIB, he could better develop his skills.

Since he joined the CIB, he has taken part in a murder investigation and spent many months unravelling a complex fraud. Both cases remain ongoing.

Says Britton of the fraud case: “My partner and I ended up working on it full-time. We had a significant arrest of a person in September for 80 counts of false pretences totalling $40,000.

“It (the case) had a lot of twists and turns, and it wasn’t just credit-card frauds – it led off to other information about drug labs. (With) a lot of other things behind it, we got to work with a heap of agencies outside of SAPOL.”

In fewer than two years of detective work, Britton has found the toughest part of his job is “putting a case before the DPP”. The task of preparing a quality file that meets the burden of proof becomes, he says, “harder and harder”.

Britton, however, cannot think of a single downside to his work, and so has no regrets about joining the police force. But in 2000, he saw staff shortages that remain evident to him today. The workload they create for investigators, he says, is “a little excessive”.

Nonetheless, Britton has allowed none of the job’s challenges to hold him back. He sees himself as a “good copper”, and feels the recent CIB course enhanced his ability and built up his confidence.

But, after four years, does the job hold the same excitement as it did in his first days on the street? “The novelty of being a police officer has slightly worn off,” he explains, “but the enthusiasm to work hasn’t died down at all.

“The work I get to do in the CIB is exactly what I wanted to do when I joined the police.”

Not even the size of Britton’s pay packet brings him any cause for complaint. By passing the CIB course, his income will increase to around $50,000 per year. But, before the course, he had endured a $3,000 pay cut, which resulted from his move from patrols to CIB.

In 2000, Britton said his work had made him more cynical than ever before. That self-assessment, he believes, remains true today. But he also credits police work with teaching him worthy life lessons that he uses as both a cop and a civilian.

From that learning, he insists, has come his ability to read and deal with the most irrational people – professionally and privately.

Where the sights of the streets once surprised him, nothing takes Britton aback any longer. And as he did before, he still maintains some interest in the minds of those who offend.

In particular, he speaks of arresting a paedophile with pictures of young children. “Just that whole psych thing of trying to think how that person works,” he says. “I found it interesting to see how he changed: in different environments, he changed personality.”

Like his former coursemate, Donna Sampson, Britton has never wondered what else he might have done. He expects, as she does, to retire from SAPOL. But before then, he hopes to secure a detective senior constable position and remain in CIB for the long haul.

Of a future role in management, however, his view has remained unchanged. “I can’t imagine at this time wanting to be a manager of a CIB or a Major Crime,” he says.

“I still want to be among the front-line work, making arrests and working on investigations rather than overseeing teams and managing budgets.”

Since she joined Mounted Operations, Stephanie Cooper has “all the time” endured well-worn gibes about cops on horseback. “Go and get a real job,” she heard “one idiot” yell on a recent Saturday night shift. Others spew out equally demeaning comments, and even neigh at her. She has come to hate the taunts she calls “the usual stuff” about mounted police.

Cooper believes few on the street appreciate the physical demands of mounted police work. “They don’t take into account the impact on your joints,” she says, “the sore bum, the chafe, and just the riding for four hours at a time on patrol.

“They don’t think that you’ve got to wash your horse and get it fed, and ride it for 45 minutes before you go out. To do things properly, horses have to be trained. You can’t just get on a horse and expect to do it.”

Cooper has herself recently suffered tennis elbow and strained wrists. But she enjoys her job and, as a horse enthusiast, loves its riding component. The inescapable pain that comes with her work has never been enough to overwhelm her.

She was thrilled to win her position with Mounted Operations, which she joined in April 2000. For Cooper, it was a goal documented and achieved. She had told the Police Journal – in both ’98 and 2000 – that she intended to become a mounted cop.

But like her former coursemate, Damian Britton, she too “had a ball” as a patrol officer. Stationed at Christies Beach, she had, by the time she transferred, responded to every type of job – including murders.

And, despite her then limited experience, Cooper often worked with partners of even more junior status. She once teamed up with a cadet as a partner and responded to a code 104 (potentially violent disturbance). The job fortunately proved less dangerous than the code suggested.

Says Cooper of working with junior colleagues: “The hardest part was trying to learn together. You don’t have someone to follow, and you’ve got to lead.”

Now, as a mounted officer, she is no less likely to face the toughest of tasks. She might, during one shift, have to search for a dead body, or back up patrols with a Hindley St brawl. During another, she might simply patrol a shopping centre or the grounds at a football match. And in the pending visits of former US president, Bill Clinton, and Queen Elizabeth, Cooper will also play a part. “We’re on call,” she says, “and practising protection work quite heavily, for the fact that this S11 group might show up.”

But since 2000 – when she spoke of “just coming to terms” with being a police officer – has she come to feel as if she is a cop? “The mounted really brought it home,” she says. “Everyone wants to pat your horse, and only that sort of exposure really gets it going for you.”

Cooper, however, does not pretend to be a seasoned veteran. She acknowledges that, with only four years in the job, she is still learning, and humbly describes herself as “still fairly green”.

Her excitement about the job has, since her earliest days, somewhat levelled out. By contrast, however, the 23-year-old sees herself as still young and gung-ho.

Today, she regrets nothing about joining the police force, but sometimes imagines working with horses in the private sector. Other thoughts of alternative careers never enter her mind. She commends policing for its range of job options, and opportunities to pursue them.

Of the job’s drawbacks, however, Cooper still holds to her earlier views. She says staffing levels and outdated computer equipment remain key problems. And while she recognizes that police managers have a difficult role, she still believes they fall short as listeners.

Police work, Cooper believes, has continued to keep her emotions and instincts strong. Her cynicism – which she earlier told the Police Journal was at a high – has “levelled off”.

Cooper sees her future with Mounted Operations, and would only leave it for a return to patrol work. For now, she is “not interested in rank” and has so far taken up no study.

“I’m not interested in studying,” she says, “and I just don’t have a lot of time at this stage. I’m more interested in other things.”

So does Cooper remain committed to the 30-plus-years career of which she spoke in 2000? “I’d like to,” she says, “absolutely.”

Constable Mark Patton – who featured in the 1998 story, The Job: Through Beginners’ Eyes – declined to participate in this round of interviews, and the last. He told the Police Journal in January that he was happy in his current position at Holden Hill Traffic. The journal might alter its two-year interval arrangement with an extension of time before it next reports on the four officers.

PASAweb   Index & Search   Top of Page   Comments   Email to Editor

The Police Journal Online is an official publication of the Police Association of South Australia and is published monthly. Editors of kindred publications can seek permission from the Editor to re-publish any Police Journal Online article. Copyright 2001  The Police Association of South Australia sustance