Expert: Dick Rogers - 12/8/2009

Question
thanks for taking your time to read and hopefully answer my very important question i have. im 22 and i have wanted to be a police officer for a long time. i finally got accepted to a very good but expensive school for a criminal justice degree. at the same time i just got charged with a disorderly conduct catergorized as domestic violence. on a lot of applications i have been seeing that you cant have domestic violence on your record to be a police officer . i got into a first offenders program in which i have been told when completed i would have the charge dismissed. i know my question is kind of vague but if you could have a answer for me its important to me. i dont want to spend a lot of money on something i cant be. thank you

Answer
Brandyn, you ask a question for which there is no certain answer...basically, you risk spending years in school without knowing if your prior contact with law enforcement will be an issue.  I would say that putting four years between the domestic problem and your application to a department, plus the fact that you have no other brushes with the law, would put you in good stead.  Also, much depends on how you handle questions asked of you when you have your oral exam.  It probably wouldn't hurt to visit the Personnel Unit of a large department and ask to talk with a recruiter and lay the whole thing out, including your perspective on the incident, and see what they have to say. Hope things work out for you.