They spent four hours touring police headquarters, discussing police work, and hearing about some of the things we are doing in Lincoln. I sensed they were particularly interested in the concept of problem-oriented policing, and in some of the things we're doing with information technology, such as CrimeView Dashboard and HunchLab.
The most fascinating part of the day for me was a discussion in the last hour, when the students were telling us about policing in their home province. Except for a high degree of specialization and a rather intense emphasis on criminal investigations, it all sounded quite familiar.
The fundamentals of policing--talking to people in all walks of life and all kinds of situations, empathizing with others, treating people the same way you would want to be treated, and so forth, are the same worldwide across all cultures. I also told them that they could probably start working as police officers in Lincoln tomorrow and do quite well. This was a very bright group of cadets with great language skills. They'd need to get used to some strange American idioms, though. How do you explain something like, "You can't squeeze blood from a turnip?"
2 comments:
It never hurts to share experiences with others from different cultures. You make a great ambassador Director.
Your American idiom comment took me back to the summer of 1965. I lived in campus housing that summer in a barracks type building. Out of twelve guys I was the only White guy. We had several different nations represented. Three were from Israel and they had only been in the States for a few months. With those three, English was the only language out of about a dozen they didn't speak fluently. Explaining some of our "idioms" was interesting, especially when they were compared to idioms from other countries.
That summer was an education.
Gun Nut
Not as colorful, but recall in 1980 with another instructor (from Sam Houston!), telling police on Truk that when investigating a crime, they needed to be as tenacious as a bulldog. Blank stares. Thereafter we changed it to barracuda.
Post a Comment