You wanna drive a school bus? That pays $20/hr, you just won't get 8 hours a day unless you're crazy lucky or have been there forever.Originally Posted by olstyn
You wanna drive a school bus? That pays $20/hr, you just won't get 8 hours a day unless you're crazy lucky or have been there forever.
I applied with Houston, Las Vegas and Portland (OR) in 2000. I didn't get hired by them. The agency that hired me is in Idaho and started me at $11.50 an hour. I'm up to $32.00 an hour now. It's a fair wage for where we live. Got both of our kids through school and one of them through college. We have a house as well. So while I don't earn what officers in San Francisco or Denver get I do okay. An added bonus is that our area has not seen the chaos that the larger metro areas have experienced, but I am looking at five more years and then pulling the plug.
I'm a detective now and that's a good place to be. I mostly work fraud cases which means when I do make a case it consists of me sending my file to the prosecutor and requesting an arrest warrant. I was instructed several years ago that even if I get a confession I am not to do a PC arrest. It's a property crime and the county jail is overcrowded. Fraudsters don't represent the immediate physical danger to society that a rapist or murderer does. Just take the suspect's statement, let him/her go and send the case file to the prosecutor. Most of the victims of credit card fraud and bank hacks get their money reimbursed as well; so there is no reason to act like some type of street avenger. Investigating fraud is mostly low-key and after the fact, often weeks and months after the crime has occurred. Sure there is always the exception, but it's not patrol. I walk around in slacks, polo shirts and light sweaters and spend much of my day at my desk working the phone, researching on the Internet, requesting subpoenas for banks and typing reports.
If you had told me twenty years ago that I would end my career as a fraud investigator I wouldn't have believed you. Like many new officers I thought I would be some type of "operator". Well that was twenty years and much civil unrest ago. Now I just want to engage in the paper chase and make it to retirement.
I think dealing with screaming kids for your entire shift may in fact be worse than being a police officer in terms of your mental health, if not in terms of safety. Either way, not a choice I personally have to make, for which I'm thankful.
The two biggest LEO employers in Alaska are paying $60-$70K starting wage. If you have previous LEO experience you can get a pretty huge starting wage bonus with the Alaska State Troopers.
Yes, the cost of living expenses are higher then some parts of the U.S., but if you like the outdoors it's tough to beat.
I commonly refer to Alaska State Troopers on National Geographic as Cops On Ice.
What is your take on Greg Ellifritz's argument for a shift to "peace officer" perspectives vs "law enforcement officer"? Is this a distinction with any real difference?
Could this change the profession's retention?
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
No. People want change, and they're about to get it.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
I am friends with several Troopers. All of them, including one that was on the show, wish that the show had never existed. Like all reality shows, there was a slice of truth served with a heaping pile of bullshit.
I've posted elsewhere that while I understand LEO is a handy shorthand to encompass a wide variety of individuals with sworn arrest authority, there are very few LEOs. They tend to be federal, but not always, and their sole task is to enforce (a usually very specific subset of the) law. Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement might be an example, somebody who's sole purpose at work is to enforce a specific subset of laws (and, note, that's a non-sworn role in some places) and that's it.
Law Enforcement is just one role of who we typically think of as police. The police who come when you call 911 sort of police. Various traffic functions, community care taker functions, etc. aren't "enforcing laws". There's no law being enforced when you document a traffic crash for the insurance companies. There's no law being enforced when we smell decomposition and kick in a door to find granny's corpse for the family who lives out of town but haven't heard from her in a week. Before cell phones, police were roadside assistance and that role continues to a lesser extent. We're still flagmen for road hazards. We're still information booths to lost tourists. Etc. Etc.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
I haven't read Ellifritz's article, but the police in CA have always been Peace Officers. How's that working out?
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