In addition to fiction under my name and pen names, I’ve written a couple pieces of non-fiction in the police-related field.
A Street Officer’s Guide to Report Writing is a joint effort between me and my friend, Doug Strosahl.
Report writing is a critical skill for law enforcement officers, but it is often given short shrift in the field. That is, until something goes wrong and they go look at the report, and find it lacking. Then people seem to realize how critical this skill actually is.
Unfortunately, it is a difficult and laborious skill to learn and teach. Part of it has to do with the nature of writing and critiquing, but part of it comes from the idea that report writing is “boring.” (One of my other great loves, history, gets this bad rap in education, too).
Maybe it is boring. Doug and I figured that even we didn’t think so, many other did. So we wrote a textbook that is structurally sound when it comes to the foundation of good report writing, but we presented it in a conversational, occasionally irreverent fashion that is intended to keep students engaged.
In other words, to be less boring
I published this monograph to help out others in the law enforcement profession dealing with the implementation of this important tool. It came about after I worked on two separate projects.
One was serving as the lead in exploring the implementation of body worn cameras for my police department in 2012. The other was writing my final professional paper for my master’s degree that same year, which was on this topic. More as a service than anything else, I published the master’s paper in part one of this short book, and my own observations, considerations, and experiences in choosing and preparing to implement body cameras in part two.
My intent was to give anyone facing the same task I faced a head start on the project.