Review of Of No Value, a Police Officer in a Decaying Culture

[Nwankwo GC]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Of No Value, a Police Officer in a Decaying Culture" by MJ Claude.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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In Of No Value...: A Police Officer in a Decaying Culture, MJ Claude documents the life and service of Shane Hoeben. Shane is a devout Christian, a loving husband and a great father. Unable to get a job with his formal degree, he resorts to training and becomes a paramedic. He slaves through his career as a paramedic. He helps all kinds of people with all kinds of conditions, and he always regards each case with vigour and enthusiasm, never with tiredness or apathy but with compassion. His job as a paramedic stretches him thin, and the pay is not an encouraging one. He decides to look into other fields. This book is like a daily log of Shane’s activities through the years.

Shane decides to undergo training and join the police force. If he thought the paramedic gig was tasking and thankless, he was in for a real surprise. The police force was a different ball game altogether. The law was misapplied and wrongly interpreted in every aspect; criminals were coddled and, most times, given just a slap on the wrist. The police put their lives on the line every day and get nothing but poor pay and disrespect with no protection benefits. Read to find out more about Shane's life and activities.

I love how the book was detailed in its delivery. A reader could write a book about the American criminal justice system just by reading this book because it contains so many lessons. I like how Shane Hoeben's story is a detailed lesson on how to have a glass-half-full mindset despite how dismal everything seems. He has seen so much ugliness, but he still has compassion, love for humanity, faith and trust in God. Shane's character restores my hope in humanity a little because Shane is honest to God and he is genuinely committed to saving and preserving lives without resorting to corruption or bribery.

I did not like the subtle bias against Black people and immigrants. I didn't like the way the author chose to address Black people in the book; calling Black people 'subjects' in this context made me realise the extent of the author's bias, and that doesn't sit well with me. Every time a black person was mentioned in this book, it was strictly for negative purposes, and the language associated with these Black people was condescending at most. For example, in chapter fifty-three, when the author talked about the Black cousins he had referred to in a previous chapter, he just called them Black males and females and not cousins, which they were originally referred to as. It was just like they were another number in the statistics of criminally-biased Black people.

Also, the police and medical terms used should not have been a problem, but the author used these terms quite generously throughout the book and then failed to provide a glossary or a reference section for the contextual meaning of the words. This doesn't seem right because this is a book intended for all adult audiences, and it is not every adult that has a background in medical practice or law enforcement. I also didn't appreciate that I found a lot of errors in this book. In my view, it wasn't professionally edited.

Due to the lack of a glossary or reference section, the number of errors I found in this book, and other issues I already wrote about, I rate it two out of four stars.

I recommend this book to fans of true crime and crime fiction. If you want to know what life as a paramedic or a police officer feels like, you should also read this book.

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Of No Value, a Police Officer in a Decaying Culture
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[Ayesha Ameera Memon]

Although I would love to learn more about the criminal justice system, I don’t think I’m going to read this novel because you mentioned there’s bias and judgement towards certain groups of people like people of Color. So sad to see this still happening. Thanks for the review though.

[Fearnia Laurel]

A job often require a lot work but is not appreciated enough, I always appreciate people who bring light on this. The bias, always condescending tone toward black people is a big turn-down for me. Thank you for mentioning it.