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As Garda, do you feel you're making a positive difference?

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  • 01-07-2024 3:53pm
    #1
    F_Raven
    Registered Users Posts: 1 ✭


    Hi there!

    Genuine question, I'm at a point in my life where it's time to pick an area of work to invest into. I want to work in a career where I can make a genuinely positive impact for those who need it. I don't care about if the work is tough, or there's no recognition or if pay is better elsewhere, I just want to know I'm making a difference each day. Would any Gardai here say that you feel that the job does this, or do you feel like your hands are mostly tied all the time? If so, what career do you think would be a better way to help people in our community?

    Many thanks for your time and any advice at all you can share.

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    #2
    irishrgr
    Registered Users Posts: 120 ✭✭irishrgr


    Not a Garda, expat copper in the US…so, you have to define what making a difference is. If you think you'll be taking a bite out of crime and locking up hoodlums, you'll become frustrated. Especially given the DPP and court system and their quirks (to put it mildly).

    Having said that, yes, you can derive huge satisfaction from what I call just helping people. We arrive on scene, provide assurance, listen to them gripe/whine/tell their story and so on. You'll get to lock up an assailant in a domestic or child abuse case, that's brilliant. I'm long past caring what the courts and prosecutors do, it's on them, not me. I did my part.

    I have no idea how many people I've helped by giving them a lift home, getting someone into a shelter, slowing down a speeding driver with his children in the back and so on. I've taken drunk drivers off the street that night, maybe that prevented a tragedy, we'll never know.

    It's very easy to be cynical in the police, everyone tells us what to do, how to do our jobs and dumps societies problems in out laps, be it the drunks, the homeless. We get hassled for doing too much policing or too little policing. You get the point. It's a great job, great teamwork and you do make a difference, just be realistic. Look at it through the lens of helping people as opposed to making a difference, it's a great job.



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