The issues of how police officers write reports and how others read
those reports have critical implications for people engaged in rhetoric,
literacy studies, and critical pedagogy.
Leslie Seawright describes the journey of a police report as it travels
through the criminal justice system. Tracing the path of a police report
from writer, to supervisor, to prosecutor, to defense lawyer, to judge,
this study exposes the way in which power, agency, and authority
circulate and accrue between writers and readers. The chained literacy
event, created as a report moves through the system, is highlighted and
its hierarchical nature examined. The book ultimately addresses the
constraints of the police report genre and seeks to expose the complex
and multifaceted rhetorical situation of report writing.
Due to her position as a police officer's wife, Seawright was granted
access to perspectives and realities of police writing typically
reserved for those inside the police profession. Seawright obtained
candid interviews and perspectives from police officers and supervisors,
lawyers and judges. This book analyzes the writing and reading process
of the officer writing the report and the report's subsequent readers.
Interlaced throughout the book are micro-chapters that offer glimpses
into the day-to-day job of police officers. These vignettes, combined
with Seawright's description of her own life as wife and scholar,
present a compelling picture of the complexity of police writing. This
study challenges the idea that arhetorical and objective documents are
possible to create in many organizations.
