The document provides a summary of the author's internship at the Peabody Police Department. Some of the key things the author learned include the importance of community policing, respecting the badge, diversity within police departments, and supporting fellow officers. The internship reinforced concepts learned in the author's criminal justice classes and provided valuable hands-on experiences like a police ride-along. Overall, the author felt the internship was a great learning experience that supported their goal of becoming a police officer.

1. Joshua P. Beloff
August 29, 2016
CJ 390
Internship Paper
Peabody Police Department was the location of my internship for the summer of 2016. I
already had connections at this police department so it was an easy way of obtaining this
internship without having to go through the strenuous process of being granted an internship
with the Peabody Police. Deputy Chief Marty Cohan had a big contribution in me receiving the
internship and all the credit goes to him for making all this happen. When it comes to police
officers and their daily shifts, the officers in Peabody have a lot more action than the officers in
my town of Marblehead. I felt that in Peabody I would have been busy doing things and not just
sitting around like I would’ve been doing in Marblehead. I have to say that I had made the right
choice by picking Peabody as the site for my internship.
There are many skills and resources that someone could obtain while working in a police
station. I was hoping to learn how to become a better person, work on my public speaking,
making connections for future jobs, how to be the best police officer I could ever be, and learn
what a police officer does day in and day out. With the recent bashing of police officers in the
news, it has led a lot of people to believe that it is frowned upon to be a police officer and there
are some people that think being a police officer is an easy job. I’m here to tell you that those
statements are completely false. While partaking in this internship I had learned that for one,
that police are needed day in and day out. Therefore, no one should ever be ashamed to be
someone better than themselves and serve for the people of their city and/or town. Secondly,
from what I had seen its nowhere near easy to be a police officer. It takes a lot of hard work

2. and dedication day in and day out to be a police officer. For instance, you could have worked 12
hour day and then the next day you need to go to court and speak on a case that could take
weeks to come to a verdict.
The five most important things that I had learned from this internship were; community
policing, your word means everything, must respect the badge, diversity, and unity. I had
learned that community policing is one of the most important jobs of a police officer. If an
officer wants to be a good police officer, then he or she should be close with those that they
serve on a daily basis. He should get to know the people and their families and form
relationships with the people, but the relationship should not be anywhere past cordial. If you
do not have a good reputation with the people, then your job will be harder than it already is.
People will be less likely to speak with you when you need information. I learned this by
watching a short police video in which that he taught me everything I need to know about
community policing and all the benefits that come with it. As a police officer if you say
something civilians will be more inclined to believe it and think that it is important. As a police
officer if you lie to a civilian by telling him one thing and then he finds out you lied then what
use to you have to them? The officer lied so how can the civilian ever believe what he says
again. Also, if the officer tells another officer that he is coming to the call and or emergency and
he never shows up and the other officer get hurt. The officer that was hurt will not be able to
take the others officers word and will have to entrust somebody else when an emergency
arises. I was reading a case in which a police officer was injured and the other officer that he
called for backup said he would show and never did. The officer was hurt and this really hit
home. Why would you say you would do something and then not doing it, especially knowing

3. that one of your “brothers” was in danger. Respecting the badge is one of the most important
things I leaned. As a police officer, you take a vow to be held responsible for the people of the
district you serve. By taking a vow, you are held to a high standard and are entrusted to be a
good person on and off the job. For example, if you are on the job and just take down a drug
king pin and notice that he has money laying around and you go over take some of the money
and put it in your pocket, you have just disrespected the badge and your department. There is
nowhere in the vow you take where it says you have the right to steal from someone to better
yourself. Disrespecting the badge is one of the worst things you can do as a police officer. You
make the entire department you work for look terrible and at times they are sometimes viewed
as untrustworthy. That’s the last thing a police department would want, when their job is to be
trusted by its people. I had watched ‘Training Day’ one day after work and went back the next
day to talk to the officers about it and we both said how Denzel Washington was wrong for
abusing his authority as an officer and how he was not respecting the badge. While working at
the Police station I had learned that diversity is very important. As we all know back in the day
the police force was only white men but as the years moved on the forces began to include
blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc. Having a more diverse police force only has positives. If there is
an incident at a house where the homeowner only speaks Spanish and you send an officer that
has no knowledge of Spanish, to the scene nothing will be resolved due to a language barrier.
Sending an officer that is familiar and fluent in Spanish will only make the situation better. With
that example you can see how having a more diverse force is an important. I learned this while
at camp when there was a camper that didn’t speak English and an officer that spoke Spanish
had to communicate with her. Standing behind your fellow officers is the true definition of

4. unity in a police force. You fall as one and you will rise as one. A police officer will always have
the back of the officer next to them. If an officer has a personal matter bothering them and
affecting their job, then the other officers will step up and try and help him or her out. The
officers will do whatever they can to help each other out. I learned this by an officer was having
a problem with a computer program at the station and another officer came in and helped him
fix the issue he was having.
Before the internship had started I was hoping to learn how to become a better person,
a better public speaker, making connections for further jobs, how to be the best police officer,
and what a police do day in and day out on the job. While doing the internship I had learned
that community policing is a major role in policing, my word means everything, you have to
respect the badge, that police departments are both diversified and unified. The things that I
wanted to learn weren’t necessarily answered right away but as I sit back and reflect while
writing this paper I have to say I had learned them. I believe the internship was so in-depth that
I was learning new things every single day and week that the things that I had hoped to learn in
the beginning were just overcrowded with all the new things I learned.
The two major aspects of the internship experience that supported what I learned in the
classroom were the ride along and the day I spent at the court. In the classroomwe had learned
that officers need probable cause to search someone’s car. While on my ride along we had
pulled over a man that had ran a red light. The officer had walked over to the car and grabbed
his license and registration and while doing so he had smelled the stench of marijuana inside
the car. This had led the police officer to search the man’s car. The search had come up empty.
This small traffic stopped made me realize that I had learned this already in the classroom. The

5. officer came back to the car and we talked. I had mentioned that he needed probable to cause
to search the vehicle and he said that I was absolutely right. In criminal justice class I had
learned that in order for a police officer to search someone or something they needed probable
cause and while on this ride along I got to see first had an officer having probable cause to
search a man’s car. Criminal law and procedure was an eye opener for me at Sacred Heart
University. I really was not familiar with how the courts worked and what went on day to day in
the court system. After taking criminal law and procedure I would say that I had a good
understanding of how the courts worked. With that being said, when I went to spend my day at
the Peabody District Court, I’m not going to lie, I walked in there like I knew everything. That
probably was not the best idea. After listening to many hearings, I had learned things about the
courts and laws that I had no idea existed. I was amazed at how information I could gain from
the courts. The day I had spent at the court not only helped me understand the courts even
more but it had added to what I have learned in the classroom and will definitely be applying
that to my courses this fall.
Overall, this internship was a great learning experience. As with everything in life there
is always strengths and weaknesses, this internship had both strengths and weaknesses,
however the strengths outweighed the weaknesses. The strengths were; the entire police staff
were nothing but supportive and beyond nice to me and the other interns. The internship left
me with nothing but happiness, knowledge of police, and resources that I will use in my future
endeavors. If there was ever a problem or something that I wanted to specifically do that day
Sara Grinnell would do her best to make sure that it happened. She was the best and made this
internship nothing but fun and really making me want to do another internship next summer

6. with her and the Peabody Police Department again. I would have to say that there was only one
weaknesses to the internship and that was the summer camps. I was a camp counselor for
some time before partaking in this internship and it wasn’t the best job. Partaking in this
internship I was really not expecting that I would be working at a summer camp again with a lot
of kids. I was hoping that I would be out with police officers every day and doing police things.
Not saying anything bad about the camp or the station, I just feel personally that the summer
camp was the only weakness to the internship. Other than that the internship was nothing but
informative and fun and would recommend this internship to anyone that is looking forward to
gain knowledge about police and their daily lives as officers.
Throughout the internship I had learned various skills that I will be able to use in my
future endeavors. One skill that I had practiced was public speaking. On some occasions I had to
talk in front of some officers and staff in the station and tell them about myself and what I had
wanted to be and do when I graduate from college. It was a little nerve wracking the first
couple of times but as I practiced I became better and better. Since I had practiced this, now
when I need to speak in front of a crowd or have a presentation to conduct I feel as if I am
ready. Also, if I become a police officer I am going to have to do a lot of speaking in front of
groups so it was a good thing that I had started practicing early. Secondly, I had read a big
packet in the beginning of the internship about the CJIS and had taken a test on it. Due to
passing the test I can say that I am quite familiar with how the CJIS works and in the future if I
need to use it I will already be familiar with it. Also, while on my ride along I had learned people
skills as well as how an officer conduct him or herself while on duty. When I become a cop I can
use what I learned from the ride along and implement it into my own way.

7. One ethical dilemma that came into existence while interning at the Peabody Police
department was when I was out on my ride along I had noticed that another police officer was
in the store and they had ordered some food. Usually in this case no matter who you are, you
always pay for the meal, no questions asked. Well, in this case the police officer was going to
take the food for free because the restaurant entrusted him and usually give officers food for
free. This really hit me and made me realize that just because he is a police officer doesn’t
mean it gives him the right to have the food for free even though the owner said he could. This
could give the owner blackmail or even leverage over the officer if something were to happen
to the owner and he needed a favor, the officer would feel morally responsible and inclined to
help him out. Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t it against most police departments rules and
regulations that you can’t take anything for free? I felt that this was wrong so I had said
something to the officer I was with and he sided with me. He had instructed the officer to pay
for the meal no matter the circumstance. It just shows that the Police department appreciates
the gratuity for the free food but that the department appreciates their hard work and wants to
help them out and pay for the meal, just like everyone else.
There are five main aspects of this job that I would like to have in my future
employment. The aspects are: the opportunity to use my skills and abilities, the job security,
compensation/pay (pension plan), communication between ranks, and relationships with
supervisors. Through the many years of schooling I have learned many skills and abilities that
separate me from others. I am very good at speaking to people on a personal and professional
level so I would hope to be able to use that once I reach the police department. Job security is a
huge factor when it comes to my future employment. I want to know that once I get on as a

8. police officer that I will stay there as one. But what I have learned about police officers is that
once you get on with a department then you can stay there for a while. The only really way that
the department can relieve me from work would be for a medical reason and or fired. Correct
me if I’m wrong ha-ha. Obviously pay/compensation is an important aspect for a future job. I
will have just graduated college with a fair amount of school loans that will need to be paid off.
So looking for a job that pays well in which I will be able to pay my loan off is important. Also,
pay is important for the type of job that I am doing day in and day out. I am putting my life on
the line every time that I place on that uniform and badge so having a well-deserved
compensation is something I am looking forward too. Being a police officer is a very hard and
time demanding job that is not like others out there in the job field, so being paid well for it is
fair. Communication between ranks is a key aspect for my future employment. If there is no
communication through the ranks then there will always be problems and can cause important
information to disappear in the grape-vine, so to speak. For example, a sergeant should always
listen to the lieutenant (next rank). He should not listen to an ordinary officer that has no rank.
Communication and having great relationships with your supervisors goes hand in hand. First
off, to have a great relationship with your supervisor is to never break the chain of command.
That means that if you are a sergeant and have a problem never go above the lieutenant and
speak to the captain. You have broken the chain of command and went over the head of the
lieutenant which is frowned upon in a police department but as well as in other jobs. If I can
have great relationship with a supervisor, then that will make the job a lot easier and not add
difficulty to a difficult job already. These five aspects are different in their own way but they all

9. come together to be very important to me as I would like to see them in my future employment
as a police officer and or an FBI agent.
There are not many aspects of this job that I would like to avoid in my future
employment. If I had to pick I would say that writing police reports and talking to big crowds
would be the only things that I would like to avoid. Currently in college I dislike writing as it is
and only to learn that I will have to write more when I become a police officer is making me
hesitant. The only way to get better is to keep writing but I am not going to let a simple act of
writing stop me from fulfilling my dream of becoming a police officer. Early in the paper I said
that I wanted to learn how to become a better public speaker and this internship had helped
me do that but I’m still nervous to do it and if all possible I would like to avoid that in my future
employment. Sadly, I know that as a police officer you need to be able to public speak so
whenever I get the chance I go out and give it my best because I’m not going to let that stop me
from becoming a police officer. These are the only two aspects of a job that I can think of that I
would like to avoid in my future employment as an officer.
There were many aspects that I had hoped to learn in the beginning before partaking in
the internship but the most important thing about this internship is what I had learned about
myself. What I have learned from the experience about myself was that I have the drive and
determination to be whatever I want to be in life, especially to succeed in my field of study.
More than anything, I am anxious to get out to serve and protect the people. Also, I have
learned that law enforcement is in my blood and that u truly want to follow my grandfather’s
footsteps and become a police officer. I am confident that with all my schooling and learning

10. that I have the ability to acquire the skills to perform many tasks involved in law enforcement
and be able to perform what is expected and asked of me.
With partaking in this internship I had the best summer ever and just want to thank you,
Dr. McCabe for allowing me to partake in this internship program. I have learned a lot and will
be applying that to further my education as well as in my future employment(s). Peabody Police
Department was a great site for this internship and felt that I had made connections and friends
that will last a lifetime. If anyone is interested in partaking an internship through the Criminal
Justice department I highly recommend it. After hearing what I was going to be partaking in this
internship (summer camps), I was hesitant to continue but I was happy that I had continued
with the internship.