Abstract— This paper details the critical literacies that aid in forming police officer identity. Beyond what is typically thought of as literacy (reading and writing texts), the knowledge and practical application of various literacies is needed daily by police officers. Literacy of the street, of negotiation and persuasion, of technology, and of law are all needed to safely and effectively enforce peace and order. Police officer identity can be threatened or completely disrupted if critical literacies are not acquired. Using a framework of identity as linguistic practice, the chapter identifies critical literacies in forming police officer identity. Keywords— literacy, identity theory, literacy event, police, linguistic practice, workplace literacy I. INTRODUCTION OLICE officers respond to calls, work traffic accidents, investigate crimes, and sometimes interrupt our busy lives with tickets or stern warnings. What is often unseen in police work is the amount of reading and writing officers perform on a daily basis. Law enforcement requires multiple literacy skills to be effective, skills that must be practiced in the field, on the computer, and in the courtroom. An officer’s aptitude and ability in working with multiple literacies and discourses shape his or her identity as an officer and law expert. Reading and writing literacy, technology literacy, and literacy of the streets are all needed to safely and effectively enforce peace and order and to establish a police officer’s sense of identity. For the past six years I have been actively engaged in the study of police writing and police practices. The methodologies used in my line of research have included ethnography, interviews, police academy observations, discourse analysis of reports, and other qualitative methods. I have found most of the police offers that I spent time with to be incredibly adept, intelligent, and perceptive. It was troubling then when their written reports so often undermined their authority and their identity as qualified police officers. In this chapter, I rely on my extensive experience observing police officers on the job, writing reports, and in court, in order to offer a picture of how police officer identity is obtained, practiced, and jeopardized through the acquisition of critical literacies. 1 Leslie E. Seawright Assistant Professor of English, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Qatar (+974 4423-0647; e-mail: leslie.seawright@qatar.tamu.edu ). In terms of identity, social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979) [1] offers an excellent place to start in examining identities that cross workplace and personal spaces. Police officers display external cues of authority and these are the ones most noticeable to private citizens such as their uniforms, guns, and badges. They drive police vehicles, carry ticket books, and communicate via police radios. However, these outward signals of authority and identity are only one-half of the full picture of what constitutes police identity. Officers also have an internal sense of authority that is derived from an officer’s belief that he or she is authorized to act on the government’s behalf. Part of the belief comes from what the officer possesses, such as the badge, but another part of the authority identity comes from the officer believing that he or she performs the job effectively and competently as part of the police community. The police officer identity though initially created for the workplace, can also carry-over into officer’s other spaces. This is partly because an officer is never effectively “off-duty.” They are required by law to intervene anytime they see illegal activity, whether or not they are actually on duty and in uniform. In addition, identity theory that recognizes discourse and linguistic activities as pivotal to identity formation is also crucial to understanding police officer identity. Bucholz and Hall (2005) offer five different views of identity including one as an “emergent product rather than the pre-existing source of linguistic and other semiotic practices”[2]. This view of identity positions the linguistic product as the source of identity rather than identity residing in an individual prior to the construction of a text. I would argue that officers are often judged based upon the reports they write, and so their identity as police officers is founded in their written products and other linguistic/literacy activities for others. Police officers can only effectively establish a sense of identity if they feel prepared and well qualified to perform the duties of writing reports, negotiating police technology, and navigating the tough terrain of human behavior on the streets. A firm and confident sense of police identity is established through the acquisition of specific critical literacies. A failure to acquire all or some of the literacy requirements of police work can endanger an officer’s confidence in his or her police identity, authority, and job performance. II. LITERACY IN CONTEXT I suggest combining two specific definitions of literacy in Making the Connection: Critical Literacies and Police Officer Identity Leslie E. Seawright 1 P