EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS COMMON AMONG COPS

Outgoing Albuquerque, N.M. Police Chief Ray Schultz is being excoriated for saying that cops engage in extramarital affairs because that was ‘nature at play.’ He included affairs between officers within the department.

All the criticism aside, Chief Schultz was merely stating a fact of life within the police service. During my years as a cop and during my association with cops as a criminal justice educator, I found that many if not most married police officers engage in sex with women other than their wives.

Patrol officers are confronted almost daily by ‘uniform groupies’ and when these women draw attention to themselves with a seductive come-on, they can make cops melt like butter. And it’s no secret that when you partner up a male and female officer, ‘nature at play’ can take over because of the extraordinary close bonds police partners, regardless of their sex, form with each other.

Police partners often spend more time with each other than with their spouses. They share each other’s innermost secrets. They are more comfortable sharing their problems with each other than with their spouses. And during every shift, they depend on each other for their lives. Sooner or later, cops working as male-female partners also often find themselves getting into a sexual relationship with each other.

Prominent and highly regarded police psychologist Michael D. Roberts informed an inter-agency law enforcement seminar at Sam Houston State University that a good number of police wives are also unfaithful to their husbands. Dr. Roberts, the recipient of the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s ‘2010 Outstanding Practice Award in Police Psychology,’ found that when a cop’s wife has an affair, it is often with another police officer, usually her husband's closest friend.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that in his criticism of Chief Schultz, City Council President Dan Lewis said: "Absolutely, it's not OK for our Albuquerque Police Department officers, public servants, to commit adultery with one another. I would expect a new chief would say that's not OK and that we're going to hold our officers to a higher standard than that."

“We’re going to hold our officers to a higher standard.” Fine and dandy, but if all the officers in Albuquerque were to be disciplined at the same time for having extramarital affairs, there would probably be less than half of the department’s officers left to protect the city’s residents and businesses from criminals. And you could say the same for any other city in this country.

It seems apparent that most police officers don’t view marital fidelity as a ‘higher standard’ to be adhered to. This is not a post-’60s phenomenon. It was happening in my day. And the presentation by Dr. Roberts that I referred to occurred in 1969.

I believe that it is the unique stressful nature of police work that contributes to marital infidelity and because of that, it occurs in the law enforcement profession at a higher rate than in other occupations.