The beginning cop seeks security, a resonably good income, and emotional fulfillment from a job viewed as of significant worth to society, but the experienced pain, frustration, hostility, sickness, selfishness, and danger of the world encountered by the police officer requires a deadening of his/her feelings and the officer, as a result, hopes simply to cope. The ghetto resident also experiences the worst of the world contacted by the police officer, except that those in the ghetto have fewer resources than cops to deal with the circumstances that threaten their emotional and physical lives. Both the police and the ghetto resident, however, experience powerlessness in trying to change the sordidness of ghetto life; yet, they most often view one another as enemies and strangers. The breakdown of family and religious rational moral influences and the passing of employment opportunities and secure standards of living for those of lower educational attainment have created pockets of angry, frightened people desperately fighting for survival and some measure of happiness. The police are not capable of dealing with this monumental socioeconomic problem, and neither is the criminal justice system. The best the police can do is to establish a cooperative relationship with ghetto residents in trying to bring a degree of order and justice to their lives, and the criminal justice system must seek greater effectiveness in dispensing justice to individuals. Finally, those in a position to control the dynamics of socioeconomic forces must act to change the world with which the cop and the ghetto resident are grappling. Discussion questions are included.