Writing In Law Enforcement

I am a police officer in Cleveland, TN. If you have ever heard a police officer say, “paperwork might be the biggest part of my job.” They are not exaggerating. In this line of work, I have found that If I am good at one thing and one thing only, that thing will need to be how to write a good report; luckily that is not the case, but that might give you an idea as to how important paperwork is in this line of work. I work four 10 hour shifts a week, so four days out of the week I am doing some type of writing. There are several different types of writing in law enforcement: report writing is a big one, writing a search warrant, writing an arrest report, the list could go on and on. Report writing in Law Enforcement is probably the most obvious type of writing. Every shift, in my city at least, there is always a civilian needing a report. These reports range from theft reports, assault reports, and harassment reports …show more content…
Obviously, a judge is going to read your search warrant, so you want it to be filled with facts, but you also want it to be written as professional as possible. Good writing is always good for business. Writing an arrest report is also important. As I said earlier, you never know which case is going to go to trial. While your arrest report is filled with statements of facts, you also want it to be written well. Although, a misspelled word does not change the facts of your case, a defense attorney might try to attack your credibility based on your level of writing. You might think that is kind of absurd, but I have it seen it happen in court. As you can see, there are several different types of writing in my job. Each writing has its own purpose, but one thing they all have in common, everybody wants to see a well written report. Put on your trial pants, and write every report as it it is going to