Can police humor survive body cameras? By:

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By Jason J. Everett, Ph.D.

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Where do birds stay when they travel? Someplace cheep.

When in-car cameras were about to be introduced in my department around 2006, we were apprehensive about how they would change how we conducted business. Frankly, we did not want them, and if it had been up to us, the department would never have purchased them.

However, we quickly learned what an essential tool they were. The first time a citizen came to the station with an utterly baseless complaint as revenge for a justifiable citation, the sergeant suggested they view the in-car camera footage together. The individual turned pale, mumbled something, and quickly left. The number of complaints drastically fell for all officers.

The real change these cameras fostered was the elimination of giving angry, annoying, particularly disreputable, or intoxicated offenders the proverbial “what for.” Essentially, we increased our use of “please” and “sir” and dropped sarcastic or loud conversations on traffic stops or incidents within range of our lapel mics.

Now we are implementing body-worn cameras (BWCs) for every patrol officer and supervisor. I assumed my role as a shift patrol supervisor would be to reduce anxiety about having a device that monitors every move on every call, promote the benefits of BWCs, and emphasize that department compliance was mandatory due to state law. What surprised me was that my shift — one consisting mainly of officers with 5-13 years of experience — was eager to have the cameras implemented immediately. What aided this nearly instant acceptance was that most of the surrounding agencies had already used body cameras for at least a year or longer. In my officers’ interactions with other officers from other agencies, they learned of the benefits of bodycams and that these benefits greatly outweighed potential drawbacks. To support this conclusion, our officers were informed of numerous specific instances in which police bodycams proved their worth. Our officers shared this new information at various roll calls, discussing different incidents that officers in outside agencies had experienced. In almost every instance, the body camera exonerated them. In contrast, the absence of a camera could have led to wildly incorrect speculation.

The potential of humor being eliminated was the officers’ No. 1 concern about BWCs once we got past the implementation phase.

The only concern expressed by my shift was the potential elimination of humor on calls. Some of our big joke-tellers were told to “get it out of their systems” because once BWCs were in use, such joking might get them pulled into the office.

Police humor is a remarkable thing. Civilian roll call attendees and new hires are routinely warned to be prepared to be horrified by what is said and what generates peals of laughter. Jokes come at the expense of individual officers, the public, the administration, and, well, everything and anything. It is ubiquitous. I’ve never seen a call where more than one officer was present and a joke was not made. Always being humorless, beginning with the dispatch and ending with the 10-8, would significantly change our law enforcement culture and frankly make the job much less enjoyable. The potential of humor being eliminated was the officers’ No. 1 concern about BWCs once we got past the implementation phase.

Humor is humankind’s greatest blessing

Humor is one of the keys to a well-lived human life. Mark Twain said, “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” [1] In their book “The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach,” authors Rod Martin and Thomas Ford provided the following insight: “Humor and laughter are universal and fundamental human experiences, occurring in all cultures and virtually all individuals throughout the world, and in nearly every type of interpersonal relationship.” [2]

Humor is a stress reliever that enhances learning and improves communication, among many other benefits. [3-5]mMost important, for the purpose of this article, it improves the workplace, specifically the law enforcement environment. [6,7] So, our officers’ concerns about body cameras curtailing workplace humor were valid. Removing humor from any workplace would be to every employee’s detriment; in law enforcement, given the high-stress environment in which we operate, the consequences could be much more dire. Twain also said, “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” [1]

Before discussing specific examples of police humor, it must be noted that our conduct and statements must comply with our policies, procedures, general orders, human resources policies, and local, state and federal law. Police humor is a unique animal. The incongruity theory of humor explains the ability of humor to elicit laughter by emphasizing the juxtaposition of incompatible or contradictory elements. Police humor is extreme because our work environment is full of extremes.

When we have a new officer in field training, we try to find their first “triple zero” (no heartbeat, no breathing, not conscious) because this will be the first time they interact with an unprepared dead body, a common occurrence for veteran patrol officers. To find humor in that situation — and out of sight and sound of the grieving family — we have to find a juxtaposition that is greater than the dead body slowly leaking fluids in front of us. We may joke that it is really not his bed but his adult diaper, and his heart attack was caused by carrying that thing all over the place (I will not quit my day job).

For the same reason, police humor is regularly absurd. The jokes must be weirder than the situations we were just in. “Side control” is like that. I was at roll call, and we were discussing an incident in another state in which an offender fired on the officers attempting to stop him with an AK-47. Someone said, “Well, if he had used ‘side control,’ he wouldn’t have gotten a shot off.” There was no attempt to mock the officers or suggest anything else could have been done; rather, it was a way to acknowledge, in a slightly funny way, that sometimes it just goes bad and there is nothing you can do. So from then on, whenever there’s been an escape, crazy situation or, really, anything police-related that is not successful or within the control of officers, “side control” comes into play.

Other statements used the same way are, “No ice, dude, no ice,” “That’s not a bad ask,” “I don’t know what they’re doing right and what you are doing wrong,” and “Unnnnn-real.” The only reason any are considered funny is that they have each been used more than 1,000 times for situations that really do not correlate with the event.

Finally, police humor is also universal. Our police dog is swift, agile and full of teeth. He periodically attends roll call and loves playing fetch with his rubber KONG toy. Since the dog is so fast, at the advice of our K9 handler, we do not pick it up and throw it; we kick it, as he can snatch it up so quickly. This is to prevent the dog from fetching the toy and the officer’s hand in the same bite. After several successful kick-and-fetch events, the toy was being kicked around the room, and the dog was darting through people’s legs, grabbing it out of the air, grabbing it before there was even an opportunity to kick it — basic dog stuff. Then, the toy took an unfortunate bounce and landed between the legs of a seated officer. The dog arrived and stared down at his toy, waiting for the officer to throw it for fetch. Immediately, the cell phones came out to record the officer’s plight as the officer yelled, “What do I do? What do I do?” to howls of laughter. (Note: No officers or K9s were injured in this incident.) I believe this type of humor is so broad that any work environment would find it funny.

Humor, body cameras and resolution

One of the benefits of experience is having a network of officers from other jurisdictions with whom I can speak. Several of them have already adopted BWCs, and I contacted a few to see how BWCs impacted their departments regarding humor. They provided these insights.

The first was that humor was unchanged when not on incidents. Once BWCs were issued, each police department put up multiple signs within the building requiring the BWCs to be off while inside since these environments were already under video surveillance. As a result, there was no change as long as the officers were fastidious in keeping their BWCs off. A partnership developed between officers in station to check each other’s BWCs to ensure they were all off, which in a small way further strengthened their corporate mission and mutual cooperation.

The second insight was that BWCs did not change how officers conducted themselves at incidents. In-car cameras with body microphones had already altered how we dealt with the public, and these changes logically extended to BWCs. The officers’ professionalism, calm, courteous language and compassion were highlighted. The officers I spoke with pointed out that BWCs provided the protections of in-car cameras but with a much broader range of impacted incidents since they travel with the officer and aren’t constrained to the squad car. The humor they used on traffic stops or at public incidents did not change but encompassed a much wider range of incidents.

With most of their patrol day having the potential to be recorded, they noted a remarkable rise in “dad jokes.”

The third and final insight caught me by surprise. Universally and anecdotally, my friends currently using BWCs informed me they thought their humor improved. With most of their patrol day having the potential to be recorded, they noted a remarkable rise in “dad jokes.” Wikipedia defines dad jokes as “Generally inoffensive… [and] stereotypically told with sincere humorous intent or to intentionally provoke a negative ‘groaning’ reaction to their overly simplistic humor.” Nearly every officer I spoke with has become an expert in this type of humor to maintain levity in the law enforcement workspace. I heard several examples in which BWC footage was shown in court, and the entire courtroom broke into laughter when a dad joke was told mid-incident. The officers reported they enjoyed greater use of humor that was not mocking, competitive, or esoteric, but rather universally funny and approachable for everyone.

While BWCs will create changes in every law enforcement workplace, it is comforting that not only will humor remain, but it could even improve.

References

1. Skordilis N. The humor of Mark Twain. Medium. October 2022. Accessed November 6, 2024.

2. Martin RA. The Psychology of Humor: An Integrated Approach. Elsevier; 2007.

3. Lefcourt HM, Thomas S. Humor and stress revisited. In: Rauch W, ed. The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic. Mouton de Gruyter; 1998.

4. Savage BM, Lujan HL, Thipparthi RR, DiCarlo SE. Humor, laughter, learning, and health! A brief review. Advances in Physiology Education. 2017;41(3):341-347.

5. Fassett DL, Warren JT, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Communication and Instruction. SAGE Publications; 2010.

6. Romero EJ, Cruthirds KW. The use of humor in the workplace. IEEE Engineering Management Review. 2007;35(1):58-63.

7. Charman S. Sharing a laugh: The role of humour in relationships between police officers and ambulance staff. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 2013;33(3/4):152-166.

About the author

Jason J. Everett, Ph.D., is a patrol sergeant who has served 27 years with a department in the American Midwest. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Concordia University Chicago and a master’s degree in police psychology from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. He is married and has lived on Chicago’s Northwest side for 28 years with his wife and two children.