Week 1: Setting Up
Hello everyone! This past week, I started my internships at Prescott and Prescott Valley Police Departments, which I will describe below! I decided to start my internships before my show research just so that I can get the real internal police department experience first, before seeing how it is portrayed on television.
My first internship was at Prescott Valley Police Department on Tuesday, from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm. Being my first day, it mostly consisted of paperwork, including signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), some Ride-Along forms, and papers stating that I read certain sections of the department’s handbook, as well as a tour of the department. For those who don’t know, an NDA is basically a document stating that I cannot talk about any information that the department deems the public shouldn’t yet know about. A ride-along is where a civilian can be with a police officer in their car while they are patrolling, which allows said civilian to see that police officer do their job. Anybody can request a ride-along, which leads to a background check before actual scheduling. Mine will be next Tuesday and so I had to sign a form indicating my desire to go on one. Finally, even though I am just an intern, I am still part of the police department, and so I had to read certain sections of the Prescott Valley Police handbook, mainly those on workplace conduct, before I could start.
Since I did much of the paperwork before starting, I was able to begin my internship at Prescott Police Department right away! This will also be from 8:30 to 1:30, on Wednesdays and Thursday. As an intern for Prescott PD, I work in the Records section, which one can see from the department’s lobby and handles past cases that have already been closed or filed away. My current project is simply printing out initial incident reports for past cases, as well as any supplemental material related to it, and then filing it away into the appropriate case file. I am allowed to read the files, however, like with Prescott Valley PD, I will not be able to share any info since they contain the names of victims and witnesses, as well as other sensitive info. Still, being able to read these files has already given me a much better insight into how the police department works than I did before! As well, being in the nexus of movement throughout the station, I get to hear many officers casually talk about their jobs to one another, which is another boon to my knowledge. To conclude, I acknowledge that my work here at Prescott PD is much more static than that at Prescott Valley, so I will warn that I may not be able to update you all each week with substantial changes in routine here.
Next week, I will be able to talk about my own television research, and how police shows compare to the real workings of police stations. See you all then!
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