The Badge Between Us
Nonfiction
Bloomsbury Academic, 2026
$34.00, 210 pages ISBN: 979-8881842550
Terrence P. Dwyer’s memoir The Badge Between Us highlights through drama and moments of insight the psychological and moral weight of a career in law enforcement. Drawn in by a desire to protect his loved ones and his native New York City from crime and influenced by the fear many people felt during the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killings, Dwyer served for nearly 25 years with the New York State Police.
The Badge Between Us regales readers with high-speed suspense. Many chapters detail tense moments: stakeouts of a home about to be robbed by rival gangsters, encounters with old-school Italian mob bosses, interrogations of murder suspects with fearsome reputations, pursuits of suspects in getaway cars racing down the road and nearly overturning. The story keeps us turning the pages, yet we never forget that the people involved are human beings. We see Dwyer’s compassion for children and their parents murdered in a gruesome arson and for those who get killed because their parents neglect or abuse them or get mixed up in the wrong crowd. We realize that some of the city’s most dangerous gangsters are also aspiring hip hop musicians, and one has a girlfriend and small child whom Dwyer speculates could be among the low-income patients his wife treats as a nurse. A major segment of this story focuses on Dwyer’s takedown of this vicious gang, yet we realize that their incarceration will leave the child without a father and the woman without income.
Dwyer describes neighborhoods where he does his work with details to highlight the grittiness of street policing, particularly in one evocative passage near the end about the places his shoes have stepped. Also, while crime and antisocial attitudes aren’t confined to certain parts of town, the descriptions point out the poverty and scarcity of opportunities where Dwyer works. Housing projects are surrounded by “wrought-iron prison fencing” and parking lots are empty because “cars are a luxury.” In a suspect’s grandmother’s home, children sleep on bare mattresses on the ground as part of an unlicensed daycare business. He takes one suspect past a wealthier neighborhood to show him that by cooperating with the police, and leaving his gangster life behind, he can build a different life.
Dwyer experiences trauma as much from witnessing and feeling powerless to stop corruption within his own ranks as from the physical danger inherent in pursuing murderers and robbers on the streets. He identifies this combination of guilt and disillusionment with the system’s ideals and with people he formerly respected as moral injury, advocating that it should be taken seriously and addressed along with the secondary trauma he experiences from observing so much suffering and violence.
Dwyer does not shy away from his own failings. The pressure from out-of-touch bosses and departmental corruption causes him to lash out at his patient wife, pride keeps him from seeking help that would have improved his mental health and his marriage, he breaks department rules in recruiting a valuable informant without official approval, and he admits he harbors anger that makes him wonder how different his own mindset is from the street gangsters he pursues. Yet, he exposes, amidst car chases and near-misses with death, how the police department’s culture of hubris and ingrained loyalty to the system itself rather than to its ideals (anything is better than becoming a “rat” on your fellow officers) influences his behavior and the choices of those around him.
He experiences camaraderie at work at some points, with fellow officers he respects, including a loyal and competent partner and a no-nonsense and knowledgeable female supervisor who has his back and who acts with integrity. However, his overall experience involves a good number of officers who act unethically (roughing up suspects, greedily pocketing cash found at a crime scene, needlessly messing up the home of the mother of a suspect where they have a search warrant) and those who cover up for them or just ignore the corruption. There are also plenty of folks with egos who seek promotions as if they were climbing a corporate ladder. Rather than this being a case of “a few bad apples,” he shows how attitudes such as obedience to the system rather than to its supposed higher principles take root early during police training.
At the book’s end, Dwyer harks back to the narrative’s opening, describing his meeting with the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, seeking information that might help solve a cold case murder investigation. He’s unable to stop himself from going after Berkowitz for a moment in the interview, secretly hoping to unsettle him and expose the repentant murderer’s jailhouse conversion to religion as a fraud. Dwyer is skeptical and perhaps jealous of the moral certainty and strength Berkowitz has found through practicing traditional Christian faith, as Dwyer regards organized and formal religious institutions with the same cynicism that he develops for his police department employer.
Dwyer turns to the solitude, rhythm, and discipline of running and training for marathons as a kind of prayer and spiritual practice. As with a movie, where the camera pans out and the music slows, his tale takes respites from the intense action to show his self-reflection. While just a sentence or two long within an action-packed paragraph in much of the book, these internal thought sequences become longer as Dwyer nears his choice of early retirement and career change.
Maintaining his Catholic faith in private, he holds to spiritual beliefs without attending Mass, and seeks out the writings of poets, saints, and mystics as he retires and comes to terms with his life and the weight of his choices and experiences. Yet, he acknowledges that religion is as much a community as it is a set of beliefs. While Dwyer has a loving family, he never seems to find another avenue for the sort of community he imagines others find through traditional religion, where people can vent, grieve and rejoice together, stay mutually accountable, and grapple with questions of identity and morality. We wonder if finding a humane community, even outside of a formal religious institution, would have helped Dwyer and others maintain their sanity.
The Badge Between Us is an illuminating look at American urban street life and governance through the lens of law enforcement. It’s also the poignant portrayal of a man and his family as they struggle to navigate difficult life chapters and moral choices.