As I have stated in this space before, there are many reasons that I don't want to be a cop: it doesn't pay particularly well, no one is ever happy to see you and you occasionally get shot at. However, the main reason I wouldn't want to be a cop is that I hate dealing with drunk people and it appears to be 90% of the job description. Drunk people suck. They are too loud, too opinionated (while also never wrong in their opinions), too violent and too oblivious to the fact that everyone around them hates them. Recently I have found myself continually pausing on two shows while in a quest for entertainment that have driven this point home: "Jail" and "Campus Cops". "Jail" is a behind-the-scenes look at the people in charge of drunk tanks and shows just how far one person can fall. "Campus Cops" is basically the same as the regular TV show "Cops" only it focuses on Campus Police.
Now, I admit when I was in college I couldn't stand Campus Police. That was because they only showed up to break up parties, making them the closest thing around to parents and college is all about finding out how much of an adult you can be when your parents are not around. (The answer for most of the people I went to school with was resoundingly "not well".) However, as I have gotten older I have found a new respect for Campus Police because their job is not easy. If you think dealing with everyday, regular drunks is annoying you should see what these poor people have to deal with on the average college campus: drunk 19 year-olds who have one semester of college under their belt so they think they know everything, while in reality don't know anything.
The first episode I saw the police showed up to break up a party. The people who rented the house met the cops at the door and said they couldn't come in without a warrant. (They were, not surprisingly, pre-law students.) The cops said that was fine, but they got a noise complaint and the kids needed to break the party up. The kids then demanded to know who called and complained, getting a little chesty with the campus police. The police told them it didn't matter who called, the party had to disperse, but, since Campus Police was already there they were going to check everyone's IDs and if anyone was underage the people who rented the house were going to be in trouble and have to appear before the school's judicial board. As the blood drained from the previously-cocky party-throwers' faces they began to worry about just how much trouble were they in and what if people refused to leave? Could the nice officers help them to get people out? (That one was actually kind of satisfying to watch.)
The second episode showed an officer responding to the scene of a drunk driving accident, in which a hammered kid drove his car into a fence. Fortunately no one was hurt (the drunks never get hurt), but as the officers tried to ask the kid questions to see if he needed to go to the hospital he just kept telling them he "pleads the fifth." Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the scenario people had in mind when they drew that one up. Then, as the cop was reading the kid his rights, the officer stumbled over a few words. Trying to be funny, the drunk kid asked the cop if he had been drinking. If the cop had whacked him in the face with his clipboard I don't think a single viewer would have called in to complain.
In the end I find these shows are like car wrecks - I hate that I even glance at them and yet I can't help myself. Much like every kid that gets into trouble onto these shows, I will deflect my own guilt onto someone else - I can only say that if people created better TV shows I wouldn't have to watch these ones.
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