CAREER-LONG FITNESS, AMATEUR SLEUTHS, AND THE FUTURE OF POLICING - 059

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transcript:

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, career-long fitness, amateur sleuths, and the future of policing. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 59 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional-quality crime-related fiction. This week, I'm answering your questions about whether police departments require routine physical fitness testing, how an amateur sleuth could plausibly team with a police detective, and what I think the future of police work looks like.

But before I go any further, I need to give my shout-outs to my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox, and Larry Darter for their support, and a huge thanks to the coffee club patrons for their support as well. You can probably hear in my voice that this has been a very long work week for me, and the coffees that you bought me definitely carried me through. You can find links to everyone supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/59, and to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

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Bryan Richards, who you can find on Instagram @brichwrites, sent in this week's first question. Bryan writes, "I've been listening to your podcast since you were interviewed by Joanna Penn. Thank you for all you do in helping aspiring writers. A few episodes back, you talked about physical agility tests that new police candidates have to take to graduate from the academy and then to join a police department. The detective in my work-in-progress is up there in age. Would he have to take any periodic physical agility tests to demonstrate that he can still do the job? What about any other regular testing, like shooting? Thanks."

Well, I'm glad you found me, Bryan. Yeah, Joanna Penn is awesome, and I was very lucky to be on her podcast. To get to your question about routine physical agility testing, that really depends upon the agency, and sadly, most agencies don't require them. There are a lot that do, but the overwhelming majority do not, and I think a lot of that has to do, honestly, with being shortsighted. Agencies don't want to pay for cops to work out on duty like firefighters, nor do they want the workers' compensation claims that happen if they get injured while working out. They want us out there on the street doing the job that they pay us for, and not sitting around a firehouse... I mean, sorry, not sitting around a police station lifting weights, playing volleyball, or playing basketball. They actually want us out there working, and we definitely get criticized for wasting taxpayers' dollars otherwise.

Now, that's not sarcasm you hear in my voice. That's jealousy of my fire brothers and sisters...                                                 Continue reading...