In "Police Work", Leonard Freed worked alongside the policemen of New York in order to see what life 'on the beat' was really like. What he documented here is an elegant yet grittily realistic portrait of ordinary people doing a "sometimes boring, sometimes corrupting, sometimes dangerous and ugly and unhealthy job." Freed shows the isolation, the complexity, the harshness and the comaraderie of the men and women hired as public servants, and the people they are required to protect. "Police Work" is a sharply tragic and compassionate view of police work and life.