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Thread: Exploring a second career in law enforcement

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by RyanM View Post
    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.
    You can do all those things without being a cop. I shot more on my own than I did on the department's dime, and that was in a culture that still valued shooting ability. In jiu jitsu, they won't make you wrestle a naked meth whore whose main fighting technique it to bite you like a rabid monkey.

    You're almost at midlife crisis time, so be really careful about starting over. See if you can do a ride along, on day shift, not just evenings or nights. Use your company's EAP to talk to someone about job frustration and boredom. Consider seriously whether you want to work nights for a few years straight, or if starting in detention is something you can handle. Remember that promotions are competitive, and assignments are not yours for the asking. You'll be on the bottom rung for vacation selections, possibly for years. Not everyone your age is OK with going back to square one.
    "Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA

  2. #22
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    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.

  3. #23
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    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 . . . )

  4. #24
    Lots of good posts, I'll just throw in my experience.

    A few depts have removed age requirements and as long as you can pass all tests you get hired. With that said, it's a whole academy, dealing with people who don't have the same life experience.

    The older new officers are generally not go getters, life experience has taught them caution and temperament. That's good and bad for the LE job overall.

    The bad parts is that as a new officer you normally get stuck with the really shitty assignments and details that officers younger would be more suited to. Depending on the PD you might in, they might make you walk for a few months, not drive or worse be driven around by someone half your age. If you didn't learn humility at this point in your life, you will learn very quickly as younger officers/supervisors are going to crush you in some things and concepts that you may have previously believed you understood well. As an older officer getting injured is a serious consideration, one good fight may potentially medically retire you and that means in some PDs you get fired (or worse). Hopefully you like politics because you will be waist deep in it. Shift work sucks at any age, it sucks even more when you're older, and an LE job is absolutely going to have shift work. That's a strain on your family life, on your social life, on your health. Don't like working Midnight's for years? Guess what new officers are likely to do? No they won't make an exception for you, in any way, at all. They don't want to set a precedent. Beyond it all, you may know how something can be done better or more effectively, but the brass doesn't give a damn, and never will. You will suffer through emotional hardships as you've never before. From death of innocent citizens to coworkers being killed in the line of duty, it's a difficult transition to make at any age, especially so we'll into ones life.

    The good is that LE, in general, is a brotherhood and calling which very few other professions have. Once accepted wherever you work, those men and women will likely be as close as any family member, and that only compounds the more time you have on the job. Most PDs will give very good pay, very good healthcare benefits and a pension, which is good. As someone older getting into LE your goal should be to promote as fast as possible in the shortest amount of time to collect your pension as soon as you are vested. Also the perks of being covered by hr218, and whatnot aren't bad either.

    LE is a lifestyle change which effects not just you but your entire family. People who you called friends may never speak to you again. That is very common with this profession.

    With all that said, knowing what I know now and having done what I have done in the LE field, I can say without hesitation that this is a young man's game and if I were in my 50's I would not even remotely consider going into LE in any capacity. I'd go back to school to get another masters or finish a PhD in something and restart a career in that field.
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  5. #25
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    The reserve idea is a good one if you have a decent one near you. I did that for a few years while at a different job. It was volunteer, but also did firearms,EVOC, defense tactics etc, not just bake sales with the retired folks.

    Make sure you can talk to people. It seems to be a dying art.

    I used to work in the crash test industry, went back to college and then the academy in my mid 30’s, dispatched for a while and have been a cop for a little over 6 years, and was a reserve for 4 years before that. I work at a smaller dept, in a smaller town, which is a perfect fit for me.

    You have to decide for yourself if you want big city constant s#it shows, or smaller town occasional s#it shows. Difference by me is when the SHTF, you may be on your own for a while.

    Two biggest things to me are, make sure your family is behind you, because you will miss holidays, birthdays etc. I’m lucky that my family is behind me 100%. The other thing is be ready for the realities of current policing, if something happens you may get thrown under the bus. My Chief backs his guys, but I don’t think that as normal as it should be.

    Do a bunch of ride alongs with different places to get an idea of how things are in different cities.

    I will say at least in my state, there are a lot of openings with fewer applicants.

    I remember 10 years ago when there would be 100-200 applicants per opening. Now there are places with 10-15 applicants per opening.

    Just my two cents.
    Last edited by Vista461; 10-29-2019 at 01:06 AM.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by voodoo_man View Post
    Lots of good posts, I'll just throw in my experience.

    A few depts have removed age requirements and as long as you can pass all tests you get hired.
    And that is a sucker bet. When I got hired you could be no more than 30, which put you at retirement in your mid-50s at the latest. My department has removed the age limit because they can't get applicants. They could give a rat's ass if older hires won't make it to full pension rights, they just want to plug holes now. People pushing 40 should consider how well they think they can do the job at 65.
    "Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hambo View Post
    And that is a sucker bet. When I got hired you could be no more than 30, which put you at retirement in your mid-50s at the latest. My department has removed the age limit because they can't get applicants. They could give a rat's ass if older hires won't make it to full pension rights, they just want to plug holes now. People pushing 40 should consider how well they think they can do the job at 65.
    I can definitely see the "no age limit" argument, at least for a large department with plenty of specialty units. If you did your 20 and came home from the military, you can't apply for us. You can apply across the street at the sheriff's office. I'd like us to have a crack at those guys, too. Even with the age limit, roughly 1/3 of my class hasn't lasted long enough to get a pension, and we've got 7 more years to go before eligibility.
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  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Hambo View Post
    And that is a sucker bet. When I got hired you could be no more than 30, which put you at retirement in your mid-50s at the latest. My department has removed the age limit because they can't get applicants. They could give a rat's ass if older hires won't make it to full pension rights, they just want to plug holes now. People pushing 40 should consider how well they think they can do the job at 65.
    I agree, it's definitely a situation which I would not want to find myself in or be tempted at. As I stated, it's just not something I would recommend, even 40-somethings, it's just not worth the hassle, generally speaking.
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  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's View Post
    I can definitely see the "no age limit" argument, at least for a large department with plenty of specialty units. If you did your 20 and came home from the military, you can't apply for us. You can apply across the street at the sheriff's office. I'd like us to have a crack at those guys, too. Even with the age limit, roughly 1/3 of my class hasn't lasted long enough to get a pension, and we've got 7 more years to go before eligibility.
    These are things that are on my mind a lot lately.... I've got 18 years in the Infantry right now, and should be coming up for selection to MSgt/ E-8 on next year's board.... I've got two more years on contract at a minimum.... The questions I keep asking myself is do I want to keep doing what I'm doing right now. I joined the Marine Corps at 19 because I wasn't down with college at that age. I joke sometimes that the real reason I kept reenlisting was because I still wasn't ready to "adult" yet and get a real job.

    The Infantry pretty much makes you start driving a desk once you pick up GySgt and while I still like the job I'm not loving what's in the future with it. If I could go back and be a Sgt Rifle Squad Leader for the rest of my time I would....but they won't let us do that.....cause everyone would! That is the best job in the world.... Though you probably don't know it at the time.... Mentoring those guys is really the only time I think that what I'm doing at work actually matters most days.....damn... that last sentence is depressing!

    Honestly I think I would enjoy being the new guy on the team again... Plus half my friends in NC and elsewhere are Cops already, pretty sure they will all keep talking to me...

    I'm single, no kids or ex wife so no family issues, I also have absolutely no desire to go back to Maryland once I retire....Pretty sure that state would put me on some kind of list as soon as I tried to register all my black tactical things in the collection.

    Sooo... These are the things that make me wonder if I should punch out at 20 at age 39 and start something new like Law Enforcement or if I should just try to do 26 or 30 in the Marines and find something else latter.
    Last edited by rcbusmc24; 10-29-2019 at 08:21 AM.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcbusmc24 View Post

    Sooo... These are the things that make me wonder if I should punch out at 20 at age 39 and start something new like Law Enforcement or if I should just try to do 26 or 30 in the Marines and find something else latter.
    Louisville Metro has no age limit and KY is a black rifle friendly state. I've seen departments mentioned here and elsewhere that also let you partially vest in a pension at 5 and 10 years, usually recruiting guys who already have a pension from somewhere else.

    Keep in mind that hiring processes can be lengthy and run in batches for larger departments. It took me right at 11 months from application to academy, and that remains the norm here.
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