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Support for this podcast comes from Unisys. Unisys is a global technology solutions company dedicated to helping people and organizations reach their next breakthrough.

They offer tools to help you run your business more efficiently, like systems integration, consulting services, application management and device management software.

Plus, Unisys applies specialized expertise to strengthen and transform teams and processes. To learn more, visit Unisys.com. That's UNISYS.com. Unisys, keep breaking through.

It's hard to understand the culture of policing in America from the outside.

There's an informal code among police officers, the blue wall of silence. And it's pretty much what it sounds like, an ethos that encourages cops to not talk about what happens at work. To protect their own, really.

Lots of people have studied the police, who they are, what they believe in, and how they see the people they're meant to protect and serve.

But it remains a system filled with problems, and one that's opaque if you're not a cop.

That's an issue for all kinds of reasons. The outrage against cops and the tension between them and civilians has been mounting.

It hit a breaking point in 2020, as everyone knows, and it's top of mind, once again, following the killing of Tyree Nichols last month in Memphis.

The relationship between the police and citizens is about as strained as it's ever been, at least in my lifetime.

So what can we do about this? How can we fix policing in this country?

I'm Sean Elling, and this is The Grey Area.

My guest today is Rosa Brooks. She's a law professor at Georgetown University, who spent most of her career in the national security world.

But she became a reserve cop with the Washington, D.C. Metro Police Department back in 2015.

After graduating from the police academy, Brooks worked part-time as a patrol officer from 2016 to 2020, and eventually wrote a book about her experiences called Tangled Up in Blue, policing the American City.

As we continue to grapple with issues of police brutality and questions about how to reform policing in the United States, I wanted to reconnect with Brooks.

I interviewed her for Vox.com back in May, 2021, in the aftermath of the Derek Chauvin trial.

She knows what it's like to do the work. She also has enough perspective to understand what's broken.

We started out by talking about what motivated her to become a cop in the first place.

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