Passage 2 

Policemen, both in Britain and in the United States, hardly find anything in common between their lives and what they see on TV—if they ever get home in time. There are similarities, of course, but the cops don11 think much of them. 

The first difference is that a policeman5 s life is centered around the law. Most of his training is in criminal law. He has to know exactly what actions are crimes and what evidence can be used to prove the crimes in court. He has to know nearly as much as a professional lawyer. What is more, he has to apply it on his feet, in the dark and in the rain, running down an alley after someone he wants to talk to. 

Little of his time is spent in chatting with women of the street or in dramatic confrontations with desperate criminals. He will spend most of his working life typing millions of words on thousands of forms about hundreds of sad, unimportant people who are guilty—or not—of stupid, petty crimes. 

Most television crime drama is about finding the criminal. As soon as he is arrested, the story is over. In real life, finding criminals is seldom much of a problem. Except in very serious cases like murders and terrorist attacks一where failure to produce results affects the standing of the police— little effort is made in searchinc.The police have elaborate hi-tech devices which eventually show up most wanted men. 

Having made an arrest, a detective starts to work. To prove his case in court, he often has to gather a lot of different evidence. Much of the evidence has to be given by people who don’t want to get involved.So a detective has to be out all hours of the day and night interviewing the witnesses and persuading them to help him.