Exploring a second career in law enforcement
I know there are a good number of law enforcement SME's on here and so I would highly value their input on this topic. Pertinent background info:
I've worked in finance pretty much since college. More and more I am realizing that although I make OK money, I'm just another anonymous cog in a big machine. But, I really like helping people...in addition to shooting, jiu jitsu, and physical fitness.
My last finance role wasn't a good fit for a couple of reasons and I found myself "day dreaming" about a career change into becoming a police officer when I wasn't panicking or stressing about work (which was often). I did do some searching on PF.com but I don't think I found any threads specifically discussing a career transition. Fast forward to last week when I and several other colleagues got laid off due to budget reasons. So now, I have an even better opportunity to make the switch if I wanted to. I have no military or previous LE background. I'm in my mid to late 30's, so probably older than the average new officer but not unheard of? I guess the bottom line is deciding what nonsense I am willing to put up with it.
So, law enforcement officers of PF, if you could do it again would you go into LE? Is it even worth it to explore in 2019? I see threads like "Remember when you were excited to go to work" and that's telling but maybe my sample size is too small. I realize there's a lot to consider here but I'd like to here if the veterans on here would ever think it's worthwhile to start down that road. Thanks.
considering a police career
Everything in law enforcement depends on where you live and what agency you work for.
When researching for an agency, here are some things to consider (in no particular order):
(1.) Find out what they pay. What’s the cost of living in that locality?
(2.) How much VOLUNTARY overtime is available?
(3.) How often might you be ordered in or held over? It happens to all of us sometimes, and in some places, because of the staffing level and the amount of calls for service it happens A LOT. That makes it difficult to plan anything outside of work and can interfere with daycare.
(4.) Do they rotate shifts or do they work straight shifts? Some places have you rotate from days to evenings to midnights. Some places may have you rotate in relief between two shifts, and others just have straight shifts.
(5.) How does the days off rotation work?
(6.) How easy is it to get time off and how much notice do you have to give?
(7.) Do shifts get picked on an annual basis, or do you get hired and put into a spot and don't have an opportunity to move until there is a vacancy?
(8.) Do you have a union? How detailed is your contract?
(9.) How much leave time do you get in a year? How much sick time? Does sick time accumulate? Can you cash in your un-used sick leave to pay for health insurance after retirement?
(10.) Being a cop means nights, weekends, and holidays. Depending on circumstance and your expectations, that can be really hard on family life. Or not that big a deal.
(11.) Rookies in most places start on the midnight shift. If you can't get accustomed to working the late shift, being awake at night and sleeping during the day, maybe being the police is NOT a good idea for you.
(12.) If you are married and you work the evening shift you won't see your wife & kid much.
(13.) What kind of arrangements can you make for child care?
(14.) How well is the agency staffed? How well are they equipped? Do you have a reasonable opportunity for specialized training? Do they pay education incentive for your degrees?
(15.) How is the retirement program?
It's hard to make any kind of blanket statement about police work as a career because there are WAY too many variables from agency to agency and from one part of the country to another.
(I'm fortunate. I've been on straight 11p-7a BY CHOICE since 1977, because I'm a night person. I like the flexibility of working nights. My evenings are free to do things with family & friends and to do recreational things EXCEPT that I can't drink before going to work. I retired in 2011 and then came back to my primary agency as a part timer. Sometimes I work patrol and sometimes I dispatch, usually on the midnight shift.)
If you're married and have a wife & child, then you also have responsibilities as a husband and father. Which means you need to be home sometimes. Don't make the mistake lots of guys do, and get hired on, work evenings so you don't see your family much anyway, and THEN get on specialized units like SWAT or Search & Rescue or Narcotics or something, which places even more of a demand on your time. Take a good interest in your career, feel free to pursue interesting training & education on your own time and at your own expense once in a while, but don't let the job become your life. If you have kids, having a job assignment where you have to carry a pager and be on call all the time may NOT be a good idea . . .
Lots of guys work all night and then babysit all day, and then try to catch a nap before going back to work at 11pm. They spend their whole life all jet lagged and burned out, and they never get to see their wife. Try to avoid that at all costs if you want to be effective at work and stay married.
another thing to consider
(1.) As the police, being the one who responds to unusual incidents in an essentially ordered universe is not a bad gig, and that probably describes how things work for many of us. I have no idea what it would be like to work in the ghetto or the barrio or in another environment where there was widespread poverty, social disintegration, and a really high level of calls for service . . . look carefully at the working environment of any agency you are considering applying at.
(2.) The work product of a police officer is a written report. Who-What-When-Where-Why-How. It's just like being a newspaper reporter in a way, except that we don't write about the news, we ARE the news.
Anyone considering law enforcement as a career needs to have good writing skills. If that's a weakness you have, you need to be willing to work hard to learn to write better. I suspect that most departments these days have the officers tape reports following a standard format, and they get typed up by a steno or somebody. That's fine, but you still need to know how to write, to organize your thoughts, and express yourself clearly, whether the information is delivered by you composing directly into the keyboard or by you dictating onto a tape.
If you can't think in a clear and organized manner, police reports will be a struggle for you. I have had the unfortunate experience of being a field training officer for a number of rookie officers who just couldn't write at all, and who just presumed that they could babble some disorganized nonsense into the dictaphone and "the girls in the office" would somehow read their mind and be able to turn it into an acceptable police report.
The stenographers aren't there to write police reports for you. That's your job. The stenos just transcribe whatever you put on the tape, and you have to edit it and clean it up later.
(And even if you are well organized in your thoughts and have become familiar with dictating reports, it can be hard to do between calls on a busy night, or when you're really tired . . . )