WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A... (SEVENTH OF 10 PARTS)

Sirens and crime scenes don't sound scary to 7-year-old Tiffany Smith, a first-grader at Clippard Elementary School.

She thinks that working as a police officer might be a fun job. After all, you get to "give tickets and take people to jail," she says. And police officers get to drive really neat patrol cars with flashing lights and sirens, and they give out tickets for speeding, Tiffany says.

Tiffany said she has seen police officers on the street, and they don't seem too scary. In fact, they were friendly.

But not everyone can be friendly with a police officer. Sometimes they have to be mean when dealing with criminals.

"You can arrest them, and you might have to put them in jail," she said.

But police officers don't just make arrests. Filing paperwork is sort of like finishing schoolwork: It has to be done.

Tiffany knows that being a police officer would be lots of work. You'd have to learn a lot and maybe even go to college, she said.

Working as a detective might be more fun than being in a patrol car. "You can help people. That's the good part of the job," she said.