Do police have to memorize radio codes?
Do police officers have to memorize ALL the radio codes? Most of them? Just the basic ones? Or not very many at all? I was looking at a booklet of radio codes and there are upward of 400. Do you need to learn ALL of these before graduating the academe? When I listen to police scanners it's all gibberish numbers and such.
Update:Just regular english? Like: We have a robbery on west eighty-seveth street? That simple?
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My large city has a total of 3 ten codes to memorize.
We try to speak English and the Feds are trying, since 2001, to get everyone to speak English on the air.
The only other codes we have are for clearing ourselves from non paper jobs. We all have simple cards we carry and our pocket street guides/police calendars have the codes right next to the Miranda warnings.
The 3 to memorize
10-1 officer needs emergency assistance
10-4 understood, 2 man or more car
10-99 understood 1 man car
1
Police 400 Codes
Most agencies are doing away with 10 codes, to improve interoperability (more than one agency working together). 10 codes are usually very different from department to department, and often other agencies (fire or ambulance) don't understand what you're trying to tell them. Plain language is becoming the standard for most police departments. If there's something to say you don't want others to hear (like if they have a scanner), that's why there are car computers with messaging capability and cell phones.
There aren't any where close to 400 10- codes. And yes an officer is expected to know them all and it isn't really that hard. But as mentioned the feds are trying to get state and local departments to speak English.
Just the main ones
211 : robbery
261 : rape
415 : disturbing the peace
187 : murder,
for example...
Also a phonetic alphabet which will vary from city to city.
A ; Adam
B : boy
C ; Charles
No, you may have to learn a few but not 400. Maybe around 50, but they'll come second nature by the time you have a week on the road.