Trust, training and the odd pair of handcuffs: What it is really like being a police officer

Tuesday, 2 January 2024

Constable Shonosuke Deguchi is part of the police’s Maori, Pacific and Ethnic Services team based in Christchurch.

Some jobs make for good television, but how they are portrayed on our screens is often blindingly inaccurate. Turns out being a police officer is not all about car chases and taking bad guys to jail. Mariné Lourens speaks to a constable about life on the police force.

We meet up with Constable Shonosuke Deguchi on a bustling Cashel St in Christchurch’s central city.

We’ve barely started talking before Deguchi is approached by two members of the public asking for directions. He immediately pauses to help them, patiently showing them on a map where they need to go.

While they’re talking, another passerby approaches and waits for Deguchi to finish up. They also have a question to ask the policeman.

When I later ask Deguchi what his favourite part of being a police officer is, it is exactly this aspect: Being seen as someone to be trusted, someone you can easily stop on the street and ask for assistance.

A couple stop Constable Shonosuke Deguchi in the central city of Christchurch to ask for directions.

As part of the police’s Maori, Pacific and Ethnic Services team, Deguchi often works with refugee families from different countries. He says when he first meets with these families, the children are often very nervous and wary of interacting with a police officer. But by the second or third meeting, they start opening up, wanting to ask questions or show him things.

“Back in their home country, police officers are people to be scared of. So when I see that change where they get more comfortable and stop being scared, that makes me really happy.”

Constable Deguchi, 39, is about as far removed from the cynical, brusque, tough policeman stereotype as it gets. He believes the greatest misconception that exists about police officers is that their main goal is to lock people up.

“Although that is inevitably a part of the police’s function, crime prevention is also a big part of our purpose. We look at the whole picture of why the crime is happening and try to help not just the victim, but also the offender.”

He referred to Te Pae Oranga, an initiative through which police and iwi/Māori partners deal with crime and prevent reoffending. Rather than just focussing on crime punishment, the approach acts as a “jump start” to help people make positive changes in their lives.

Becoming a police officer was a childhood dream come true for Constable Shonosuke Deguchi, who says he saw police officers as “heroes” growing up.

Deguchi has also been part of Te Raranga, a training programme to address hate-motivated crimes and incidents - something he describes as a very fulfilling part of his job.

That is one of the perks of joining the police, he says. It opens up the door to a wide range of work as there are so many options to choose from - from a frontline police officer to a detective, a dog handler to a police prosecutor, a road policing officer to a member of an armed offenders squad. No two roles are the same.

Becoming a police officer involves going through a recruitment process that includes a medical check, physical appraisal test, background check and interviews, before being selected for 20 weeks of training at the Royal New Zealand Police College. Deguchi describes the process as challenging “but achievable”.

He admits not every part of being a police officer is always enjoyable. When he was working as a frontline police officer, he said it was not uncommon to repeatedly get calls to go to the same place to deal with the same issue involving the same people.

“This sometimes made me doubt myself, because I would think what could I have done differently to have prevented this issue from happening again. As a police officer you don’t have a choice, you have to help when called. But being called again and again to the same place for the same reason… I didn’t enjoy that.”

For him, being a police officer is a childhood dream come true. “As a child, I kind of saw [police officers] as heroes in a sense.”

Deguchi was born in Japan and lived there until the age of 12, but coming to New Zealand and not being able to speak English at the time, did not deter him from his dream. “Coming here and learning about the good reputation of the New Zealand police, I just knew I had to join.”

His advice for someone wanting to join the police force? “It helps having some life experience,” he says.

“When you become a police officer, you don’t lose who you are, you use who you are. Your background and your experiences brings something to this organisation. And that’s the great thing about it.”