What Cops Know

Rating:
Summary: The Stuff of Drama
Review: A few years ago I saw a theater version of this book at the Live Bait Theater in Chicago. I didn't know about the book and thought that the playwright had such a wonderful, creative ear to make the police scene come alive. Connie Fletcher has the gift of capturing the words of actual cops in a way that creates a consisent story and strong drama.

Rating:
Summary: Good reading for students interested in police work.
Review: A good book for the high school or college student interested in police work. A good change from the boring theory and scholarly books I read during undergraduate studies. A real page turner and a book that can be picked up when you only have a couple minutes to read. It is written in short paragraph like format, jumping from one account to the next in only a few lines. It takes a couple pages to get used to this still of reading,but none the less it is good book. It further fueled my desire to work in law enforcement.

Rating:
Summary: Unique format
Review: Basically it's direct quotes from the various officers of the the various internal dept.(i.e. homicide, narcotics, robbery, organized crime etc.). of Chicago's Area 6 (richest to poorest). You can open this book to any page and read. Excellent. Different.

Rating:
Summary: A terrific insight into the minds of police officers
Review: Connie Fletcher has done a great job of getting to the heart of what police work is really about. The officers who contributed to the work opened up to her and let the reader in for a look at the inside few civilians get to see. A recommended book for all who care about what police endure.

Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D., author of "Managing Police Stress" [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Well chosen approach, great choice of interview subjects.
Review: Connie Fletcher picked the right approach in tackling this subject; like Nicholas Pileggi's Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family, What Cops Know is told almost entirely in the subjects' own words, giving it an immediacy and buoyancy that can be mesmerizing. As one police officer stated, they have to develop a sense of humour about what they do. So their toughness, their panache for strange parlance and anecdotes, and their occasional bursts of machismo are delivered first-generation, Fletcher having the good sense to hold back on her editorial comments (something a writer like Colin Wilson overindulges in, making his books extremely moralistic) and just let her subjects tell their stories.

The book started off slowly (the foreword explaining the approach, though useful, was cut-and-dry stuff, though certainly useful), but after getting through the first section, I plowed through 200 pages in one sitting. Some of the stories are plain hilarious; some disturbing and sombre; some made me downright sick to my stomach. The child-molestation section was harrowing; I'm usually very objective in my approach to reading, but the story of the mother "selling" her six-year-old child to strangers gut-punched me.

Reading through this book, you begin to understand that the police have one of the most strenuous, underappreciated, and potentially corrupting jobs in Western society.

Rating:
Summary: The best way to know what cops see every day on the job.
Review: Excellent book. Lets people who read it know what law enforcement officers see on a daily basis.

Rating:
Summary: Easy reading true crime
Review: I guess this is why they say First prize is a week in Chicago, Second prize is two weeks in Chicago. I like this book because it gives a large cross section of a large and rough city's Police department. While there a million yarns about the NYPD, I do believe that for a long period of time Chicago was A LOT rougher than NYC. I believe it has something to do with grinding urban poverty coupled with the influx of all the rural, tiny and poort elements of the American heartland (Tennessee and Kentucky, etc.) coming together. This has always been true of Chicago's history, even from its gangland days, I believe. The stories in the book run the gamut, from dead children, wild shootouts, and bizzare and sadistic murders. This book would send any surbanite fleeing back out of a City. Now in this supposedly 'reduced urban crime epoch' the young should read this book when they head to a hip urban campus and always keep in mind what most U.S. metro areas degenerate to, RATHER QUICKLY.

Rating:
Summary: Easy reading true crime
Review: I guess this is why they say First prize is a week in Chicago, Second prize is two weeks in Chicago. I like this book because it gives a large cross section of a large and rough city's Police department. While there a million yarns about the NYPD, I do believe that for a long period of time Chicago was A LOT rougher than NYC. I believe it has something to do with grinding urban poverty coupled with the influx of all the rural, tiny and poort elements of the American heartland (Tennessee and Kentucky, etc.) coming together. This has always been true of Chicago's history, even from its gangland days, I believe. The stories in the book run the gamut, from dead children, wild shootouts, and bizzare and sadistic murders. This book would send any surbanite fleeing back out of a City. Now in this supposedly 'reduced urban crime epoch' the young should read this book when they head to a hip urban campus and always keep in mind what most U.S. metro areas degenerate to, RATHER QUICKLY.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite as good as Cops...
Review: I read Mark Baker's "Cops" before I read Fletcher's book, which seemed, frankly, like an attempt to capitalize on Baker's idea. Nevertheless, it's a good book--primarily because the cops have good stories to tell. Baker's book covers more departments, while Fletcher's deals only with Chicago cops.

To be fair, Fletcher's "Breaking and Entering" is a much more comprehensive and balanced book than this one. Still, it's a good read and if you're into law enforcement, it's a must-read.

Rating:
Summary: From a Chicago Cop
Review: I read this book before I became a Chicago cop. I felt like an outsider looking in and was curious as to how true the book was. I can tell you that this author knows what she is talking about. Working the streets of the southside, seeing murder, child abuse, prostitution, drugs, addicts etc... I can say without a doubt there is truth to the words in this book. There is truth to the after-effects cops can have from becoming part of this world, the drinking, the crying, the sleepless nights and the eventual hardening of the heart and beoming apathetic. This is a must read for anyone getting on the job. Read it and make sure you know what you are getting into. This is the best job in the world, but being prepared on how to deal with the pitfalls of it is essential.