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We give the police some slack because its a dangerous job. They are often paid quite well because its dangerous. But how dangerous is it? 1 Logging workers 2

We give the police some slack because its a dangerous job. They are often paid quite well because its dangerous. But how dangerous is it? 1 Logging workers 2 Fishers and related fishing workers 3 Aircraft pilots and flight engineers 4 Roofers 5 Refuse and recyclable material collectors 6 Driver/sales workers and truck drivers 7 Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers 8 Structural iron and steel workers 9 First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers 10 First-line supervisors of landscaping, lawn service and groundskeeping workers 11 Electrical power-line installers and repairers 12 Grounds maintenance workers 13 Miscellaneous agricultural workers 14 Helpers, construction trades 15 First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers 16 Police and sheriff’s patrol officers Source: https://www.ajc.com/business/employment/these-are-the-most-dangerous-jobs-america/x2MOTeEYCgkt2zYCLfqfJJ/ https://www.ajc.com/business/employment/these-are-the-most-d... EDIT: Be nice to your fellow HNer's. Also, no one could pay me enough to be a policeman.

raxxorrax 6y ago
I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  So it feels more dangerous to you. I’d assume it’s because the danger is so far out of your control?
- woah 6y ago
  Are you saying that the stats posted above are wrong? Based just on your imagination? Or do you have some information about shortcomings in how they were collected?
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    No, I didn't say that they are wrong. My imagination is unlimited of course. A shortcomming I see here is that the danger is reduced to fatalities as average over the whole profession. There certainly are areas in the US where policing is extremely safe, everyone knows you by name, sponsors you a donut from time to time and is happy to see you. I would do it without a problem and this is probably true for most officers. But allow me to specify, I wouldn't want to be a police officer in urban areas with focal points in crime.
- user982 6y ago
  > I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. Iceland has a fairly high guns-per-capita number, with about one gun for every third person. An odd choice to use as an example of a country safe due to an unarmed populace. > So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective. "I see your data, and I willfully ignore it."
  - jaxx75 6y ago
    > one gun for every third person. I would suspect it's a high rate of long guns, not hand guns.
    - de_watcher 6y ago
      not hand guns... you mean footguns?
      - blaser-waffle 6y ago
        "Longarms" or "long-arms" generally refers to rifles and shotguns, as opposed to handguns. It's an important distinction, as something on the order of 80-85% of gun violence in the US -- rape, murder, robbery, suicide, etc. -- are with handguns. Attempts to ban handguns have met stiff resistance, though, e.g. Heller v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Almost all deaths deep sea fishing are from mistakes. Many deaths from policing are people intentionally trying to kill you. Maybe that comes into play. With deep sea fishing , if you're careful enough, you can drastically lower the death rate - it's in your hands. Not so with policing.
- dTal 6y ago
  Regarding this often-cited argument of "people can own guns, so cops need them" - in a situation with a gun, does it actually help if the cop also has a gun? Now you have a gunfight on your hands. By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. What's the actual problem with disarming the police completely, and having them call in a SWAT team in the rare event that someone actually threatens a cop with a firearm?
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    Of course it helps to have a gun if your opponent has a gun, because both of you now have a risk of getting shot. If I know you don't have a gun because you're one of these unarmed cops, I can completely dominate the situation. I can make you stand on one leg and do a recital. > By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. Rocket launchers are not anti-personnel weapons and no ordinary criminal carries them or would be expected to carry them. The best weapon to neutralize a threat wielding a rocket launcher is not another rocket launcher, it's a rifle. Should we arrive at the situation where criminals routinely arrive in armored personnel carriers or tanks, then we can talk about arming the police with rocket launchers.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      Right, so police need body armor, not handguns.
      - gridlockd 6y ago
        Body armor might save your life, but it doesn't make you invincible to bullets. If you take a bullet with body armor, you're going down. You're no threat whatsoever. You have no power in the situation, you can't get it under control, mitigate the threat, and so on.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    If you can easily get a $500 device that makes 95% of cops stop chasing you, wouldn't every rational violent criminal buy one? I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals...
- Someone1234 6y ago
  30-40% of police officer deaths aren't gun-related, they're traffic accidents[0] with another 30% being "job related illness"[1]. And in some years traffic accidents is the leading cause of deaths. About 50~ police officers die via guns per year. The police kill about 1,000 citizens per year via guns though[2]. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html [1] https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-d... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
  - marcoperaza 6y ago
    It's worth noting that while every unjustified shooting is one too many, the vast vast majority of shootings by police are unambiguously justified. The US has a lot of violent criminals, many of who are bold enough to even try to kill police officers.
    - minikites 6y ago
      What evidence leads you to this conclusion?
      - marcoperaza 6y ago
        Both of these statements can be true: 1) the vast majority of shootings by police are justified, and 2) there are way too many cases of excessive use of force by police, including shootings. You can look at the reports. They don't usually leave local news, if they even make it there, because there is nothing remarkable about them. People have done aggregations of the data. I'm not saying it's going to convince you if you're already convinced otherwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/o... "But only a small number of the shootings — roughly 5 percent — occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats."
- oblio 6y ago
  What does Iceland have to do with anything? Those numbers are from the US.
- scottoreily 6y ago
  Found the delusional power hungry fascist. What’s it like to lack complete empathy?
- kube-system 6y ago
  I really haven't really heard anyone, even protestors, claim that police in the US should give up their guns. The recent high profile cases of deaths haven't been by gun, but with bare hands. Mostly, the discussion is around if/when deadly force should be used, no matter the implement.
  - vanattab 6y ago
    Ummm... I mean the protesters around here want the Police completely disbanded...
    - kube-system 6y ago
      That doesn't mean there won't be police. Other cities have disbanded their police departments. All have been replaced with a new police department. The idea is to replace a poorly run department when reform isn't good enough. The idea isn't to have a completely unpoliced city. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-...
      - ajayh 6y ago
        Camden City PD was disbanded to reduce the costs of salaries and benefits with new union contracts. The CNN article doesn't even contain the word 'union'.
        kube-system 6y ago
        That's beside the point. My reason for linking the example was to illustrate that departments have been disbanded before and it's a more aggressive strategy for change than attempting to reform an existing department, not a call for lawlessness. "disband the police" fits on a sign, but it's an incomplete statement.
  - jberryman 6y ago
    I agree with that impression, and actually find it really puzzling that disarming police isn't a central message. I think it's very likely that if the police on George Floyd had been unarmed that eventually the bystanders would have intervened (at least I hope).
frank2 6y ago
I would worry more about PTSD than about death or injury if I was a cop. Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone intentionally tried to kill you. And doing violence to another person is also potent cause of PTSD. For those 2 reasons, I would expect rates of PTSD to be higher among cops than among the other 15 occupations you list. I would also worry that the habit of suspicion needed to be effective as a cop would be bad for my marriage and other relationships. In other words, I would worry that the work might make me pathologically cynical. Finally, some people really enjoy having power over others and using that power to inflict pain. Even if the other disadvantages of police work did not exist, it might be wise for me to avoid it just to pessimize the probability of my needing to work with someone like that. It is a complicated issue, but certainly I find such people distasteful and suspect that most adults in my country (the US) share my distaste.
- wwright 6y ago
  I would argue that this applies to the people being policed as well, if not more so. A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them. Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    At the jail I go to, there is more concern expressed by the prisoners about the destruction caused by the drugs than the drug sentences.
    - Uberphallus 6y ago
      Because that's the narrative that gets your sentence reduced and what any lawyer would advise: from now on, publicly you'll condemn the drugs that got you here.
      - jtbayly 6y ago
        No. You have no clue. It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out.
_iyig 6y ago
Would you say there's a difference in kind between the risk of death due to equipment failure or negligence, versus the risk of another human being actively trying to kill you? They seem different to me, but I'm not sure how to reason about the difference.
- mseidl 6y ago
  The actual homicide rate of cops is almost half of the normal population.
  - _iyig 6y ago
    Interesting. Do you have a link? Those numbers are hard to Google, all the results I'm getting are for deaths caused by the police vs. of police themselves.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Death-by-person probably less controllable than death-by-equipment-failure. But, in reality, I'm not sure that it is. There are processes/procedures to reduce the likelihood of both.
  - _iyig 6y ago
    This is exactly what I'm struggling with. Intuitively, the idea of another person trying to injure me sounds scarier than a harness failing or tree falling. People can be a lot more unpredictable than gravity or metal fatigue. But then again, the safety of loggers and roofers depends not only on their own gear & diligence, but also on human co-workers who can be just as unpredictable. Versus violent criminals, at least the co-workers aren't actively and creatively malicious (usually).
mseidl 6y ago
Most of the deaths are accidents. Actual homicide rate of police are 3.0 per 100k vs 5.6 per 100k of regular people.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  A more important question is what is the homicide rate of the demographics of people who go into policing. Probably lower than 3.0. It's easy to get a drastically lower personal chance of being murdered in the US through simple steps like not being part of a gang. Most Americans on HN aren't going to be murdered at 5.6/100000, or even 3.0
- rabanne 6y ago
  Can't believe people are citing this data. Comparing homicide statistics of people armed with guns being killed vs armed or unarmed regular people and thinking cops are safer than armed or unarmed regular people? Come on. How about we account assults? In 2018, 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult. Of them, 30.6% sustained injuries. In 13.2% of the incident, the attacker was prosecuted.[1] But the rate of aggravated assult against regular people is 0.2%. Clearance rate is 52.5%. Prosecution rate is much lower.[2] I really don't care about your ideology or anything, but saying police is a safe job is just stupid. 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult while armed. Let's see how things changes when police is forced not to be armed. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018
  - learc83 6y ago
    10.8% faced “assault” is a very misleading statistic because “assault” as reported here is completely up to the discretion of the reporting officer. Only ~1/10 of these “assaults” are even prosecuted. If prosecutors aren’t even willing to charge someone with assaulting an officer, it probably wasn’t worth calling an “assault”.
    - rabanne 6y ago
      Even accounting for that rate, police faces 5x "prosecutable assults" more than a "reported assult" on a normal person. We don't know what "prosecutable assult" statistics on a normal person so we can't compare them directly, but the rate is approx. 67%[1]. Clearance rate is 52%, so it shows that while policing in US, you get approx. 15x more chance of facing "prosecutable assult". [1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/scpdvc.txt https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/scpdvc.txt
6510 6y ago
The danger also scales with the number of aggressive assholes wearing the same uniform. It is like any job where your coworkers don't do their job. Eventually you will be held responsible for their results. When the boss asks you about it you might be reluctant to point out your coworkers since you still have to work with them.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
I used to sell life insurance. Dangerous careers would be more expensive. When I was an agent in 2004-2005 in the USA, being a police person was not considered dangerous enough to warrant a rate increase. As a professional wrestler, you'd be lucky to get life insurance at any price.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Insurance rates are such an underrated source for risk assessment.
  - sigwinch28 6y ago
    Though not always reliable (see: credit default swap pricing in the lead up to the financial crash in 2007/8).
    - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
      A credit default swap is not an insurance contract; you're in the world of 'buyer beware' not 'utmost good faith'. Even the monoline insurance wrappers around the various credit products were very atypically constructed insurance contracts.
      - kansface 6y ago
        Not the swap itself, but the assessments provided by the ratings agencies.
  - hypewatch 6y ago
    Are they? What’s the alternative that gets all the undeserved attention?
    - jasonjayr 6y ago
      Simple Death rates? Insurance rates are developed by financially-motivated actuaries that consider a whole bunch of variables in order to create market-efficient rates.
growlist 6y ago
I knew a really nice guy that ended up working in forestry in the US, and tragically died after backing into a powerline whilst up a tree in a harness cutting branches. Working with trees is so dangerous.
chrisbennet 6y ago
I would think logging would be less dangerous now. When a was growing up in Maine, loggers cut down trees with the chainsaw and pulled the trees into the wood yard with a tractor like skidder (skidah in Maine-speak). Now, they are more likely (I think) to use a machine that clips the tree off (like scissors) and takes the branches off.
aetherson 6y ago
I agree that being a police officer isn't as dangerous as cops would have you believe, but aggregating statistics for the whole profession probably hides some spikes of larger danger. Lots of cops work essentially desk jobs. Lots of cops work in safe, quiet jurisdictions. They're pulling down the average, while cops who are responders to 911 calls in high violent crime areas pull it up.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  There is a statistic somewhere (my googlefu can't find it at the moment), that shows that in less then 1% of the cases where police are called there is actually even the chance to intervene. In otherwords in 99% of the cases they come after the (possible) crime and are really just taking a statement. Still they walk into every situation with their hand on their gun. Often enough situations escalate because of that. I believe many situations would be much saver if the officers would not carry guns. Call the armed units for cases where it's warrented, like e.g. in New Zealand.
willcipriano 6y ago
>They are often paid quite well because its dangerous 2019 median pay for a police officer/detective: $65,170[0] 2019 median pay for high school teachers (often cited as underpaid): $61,660[1] [0]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/mobile/police-and-detectives.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/mobile/police-and... [1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobile/high-school-teachers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Being a high school teacher is a far worse job than being a cop. Cops don’t even have to pretend they care about helping people.
- _jal 6y ago
  That omits overtime, which is a massive component of compensation in many departments. It also ignores after-hours gigs they can get because they're cops and pensions, which not so many get anymore. OT in Chicago: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/1/14/18343141/editorial-reining-in-chicago-s-six-figure-salary-club https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/1/14/18343141/editorial-re... : "In 2017, a sergeant who apparently never sleeps made $279,612, which included $158,917 in overtime pay. A detective made $285,070, including $144,926 in OT. In all, according to a Sun-Times report on Sunday, rank-and-file police officers in 2017 pulled in about 60 percent of the city’s overall overtime pay." Please point me to all the six-figure teaching opportunities.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    there are several counties in maryland where a teacher with an advanced degree and/or many years on the job can make around $100k. http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20182019Staff/20182019fSalarySchedules.pdf http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SS...
    - philg_jr 6y ago
      Same with eastern PA, Bucks County comes to mind. A friend of mine teaches middle school, has her masters degree, and makes north of 100k. The property taxes in Chester Country, Delaware County, and Bucks County definitely reflect the salaries. The schools in those areas are generally pretty good, I've heard.
prepend 6y ago
It reminds me of Taleb’s Extremeistan vs Mediocristan. I think it was in Fooled by Randomness. For police the danger comes in spikes with mostly non-dangerous work. For a lumberjack the danger is evenly distributed. So I think for police, it’s the constant low probability of great danger.
panzagl 6y ago
There's a continual mental impact of always dealing with the nasty side of humanity that I think often gets overlooked- everyone is always lying to you or hiding something, and you get to see a large number of dead kids and wasted lives.
- greedo 6y ago
  And a lot of the corrosiveness that cops have to suffer is from other cops. Racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia etc. If you're smart, you're excluded by IQ tests since departments prefer to avoid you. This ends up altering your worldview as an "Us versus Them" where there are cops and there are criminals. Everyone else is a potential criminal. Everyone is given side eye. The system is rigged, so why not put in for extra overtime. Bump up your salary the last three years so that your pension goes from a $90k/year basis to $175K. And if you think cops are out to protect you? What a joke. Cops are out to protect themselves first. They've been glamorized since the 1980s as "foot soldiers in the war on crime." Their unions have fought to protect the "few" bad apples, when the bunch is rotten. They go through the motions of "protecting" us, but that's just paperwork. Showing up and taking some notes. If you've ever had anything stolen, you'll know what I mean. The cop will write down some information, maybe give you his biz card, then that's the last you'll hear of it. They never do any leg work/investigation, unless it's something mandated by their bosses. Defund needs to happen soon. Spend the money on drug rehab, mental health, etc. We need less than half the cops we have, and no damn PD needs an MRAP.
  - panzagl 6y ago
    I mostly don't agree with this as I know too many cops. The racism is tricky- if the only X people you saw were criminals, without any balance on the positive side it can very easily get into some sort of loop. And lots of places are like that in the US, for a variety of reasons- the cops see the bad side of X, without a balance of neighbors and other helpful examples to counterbalance. They're part of the problem, but they're also caused by the problem.
- kilroy123 6y ago
  This is exactly right. Growing up, my dad was a police officer. The mental part of being a cop dramatically affects officers and their families. Eventually, my dad got very injured on the job and had to quit. The mental part is what injured him the most.
vlovich123 6y ago
Something about this list is fishy. Where are the soldiers? Also I'm thinking this is just a simplistic comparison with a base death rate on the job (ignoring age & co-morbidity factors). Police often retire after 20 years so you're looking at the majority of the police force being under ~40-50. That's a significant point of comparison because other jobs you kind of just work until your body fails you (either through extra clumsiness, too much labor for the heart, etc). So the manner of fatal death & age are super important factors here that are ignored. I don't think it's helpful to say police don't actually have a dangerous job. It is perhaps helpful to consider other HNer comments like "You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop". That might explain the pay difference. More importantly, the entire framing is the problem. As soon as you're looking for reasons to cut officers slack, you're on the wrong side. Being a police officer should have at least the same seriousness, responsibility, training, & consequences (if not more) as being a lawyer, judge, doctor, etc. Probably more since they have greater training and capability to end a life and put themselves in such situations more frequently (& often instigate/escalate such situations whether through their own actions or their association with police).
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Where are the soldiers? I think the rate of death and injury where they weren't back to work in a couple of days for US troops in Iraq was a bit less than 2 in 100. * Note that most soldiers work in supply, administration, artillery, cooking, running the mail system, and things like that, and aren't exposed to any combat at all at any point in the careers. I can imagine refuse collector being more dangerous than that. * Death and Injury Rates of U.S. Military Personnel in Iraq , Goldberg, 2010
- anoonmoose 6y ago
  I would not expect soldiers to be included as the potential and expectation for death is much higher and generally totally different. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread if you're in the military you can legally be ordered to do something that will 100% result in your death with no ability to refuse, which is not true of any of the professions on that list.
- hwillis 6y ago
nabilhat 6y ago
The original source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0], which is a bottomless rabbit hole of detail. Data quality side note... Others have pointed out before that a primary work related risk for nearly all of these professions is transportation. That's why the only landscapers we see on this list are the supervisors: supervisors are on the clock while they're behind the wheel, the workers aren't. Reading this data in a meaningful way requires consideration of transportation related risks. [0] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm
- xapata 6y ago
  Leading cause of death for peace corps volunteers is (was?) motorcycle accidents.
macspoofing 6y ago
>They are often paid quite well Big cities, yes. Small towns and rural areas, not so much. National average is around $60k/year - but the variance is high (from $30k to $120k - depending on the area). >But how dangerous is it? The numbers don't tell the entire story. There's a difference between danger coming from negligence vs from a chance of murder by another human. Soldiers coming back from Iraq suffered high numbers of PTSD, even though the mortality rate would probably be similar to one of the dangerous jobs you listed. Not only that Police have to deal with the darkest sides of society, including scenes of murder, rape and violence even against the most innocent of our society - like children. 'Police' is a type of job that is closer to the military example I gave, than to a logger or fisherman.
brightball 6y ago
I believe that ranking shows based on statistics but the real X-factor in Police vs everything that ranks above them is "other people" or your sense of control of the situation. Think about why many people are fine with driving but fear flying, despite flying being significantly statistically safer. The difference is that when you're driving, you feel in control. The same is true of all the professions listed as more dangerous than police here. If you're following your training and the safety protocols that go with it, safety isn't a huge concern with any of them. For police, they respond to 911 calls and serve arrest warrants. A huge part of their job is getting called to potentially dangerous scenes with people who may or may not be armed, may be violent, may fire at them, may ambush them, etc. This is a recent national story from my hometown that illustrates it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/south-carolina-police-shooting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/south-carolina-police-... I can't imagine being more fearful about logging than worrying that something like this would be on the other end of one of the dozens of 911 calls I'm asked to respond to each day.
im3w1l 6y ago
I can't help but think of this xkcd https://xkcd.com/795 https://xkcd.com/795 The title is conditional risk. The characters reason that since very few people die of thunderstorms, they don't need to take any precautions. The point is of course, that the reason that so few people die of lightning is that people are sensible and avoid danger. And that if you are reckless then you will be at much higher risk than the average person. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case here. But it's a hypothesis that I think needs refutation.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> 16 Police and sheriff’s patrol officers Also of note, the primary reason police are even this high is for the same reason as truck drivers -- traffic accidents.
steve76 6y ago
Breachers on a SWAT teams take their job into consideration when clipping their fingernails. Thousands of hours of intense training. Complete devotion or death. How many on your list take their job that seriously? Also go across the southern border, where a police officer is murdered everyday. You contribute to that through drugs and human trafficking. If we do what you say, that gets worse, and that comes here. "What explains these two armed forces’ divergent attitudes toward bad behavior?" In war, the first lesson you learn is you are going to die here. It's quite a sobering attitude, like living in a hospice. Why beat someone up when you can just burn down their aircraft carrier with napalm, likely dying horribly or crippling or maiming yourself for life doing it. Police, the only rule is just come home. Contain the violence, protect the public, don't escalate as you live there. People deserve the policing we get. No riots, no SWAT teams, not even locks on doors if people can lay off the elephant tranquilizer.

raxxorrax 6y ago

I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective.

Semaphor 6y ago
So it feels more dangerous to you. I’d assume it’s because the danger is so far out of your control?
woah 6y ago
Are you saying that the stats posted above are wrong? Based just on your imagination? Or do you have some information about shortcomings in how they were collected?
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  No, I didn't say that they are wrong. My imagination is unlimited of course. A shortcomming I see here is that the danger is reduced to fatalities as average over the whole profession. There certainly are areas in the US where policing is extremely safe, everyone knows you by name, sponsors you a donut from time to time and is happy to see you. I would do it without a problem and this is probably true for most officers. But allow me to specify, I wouldn't want to be a police officer in urban areas with focal points in crime.
user982 6y ago
> I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. Iceland has a fairly high guns-per-capita number, with about one gun for every third person. An odd choice to use as an example of a country safe due to an unarmed populace. > So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective. "I see your data, and I willfully ignore it."
- jaxx75 6y ago
  > one gun for every third person. I would suspect it's a high rate of long guns, not hand guns.
  - de_watcher 6y ago
    not hand guns... you mean footguns?
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      "Longarms" or "long-arms" generally refers to rifles and shotguns, as opposed to handguns. It's an important distinction, as something on the order of 80-85% of gun violence in the US -- rape, murder, robbery, suicide, etc. -- are with handguns. Attempts to ban handguns have met stiff resistance, though, e.g. Heller v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Almost all deaths deep sea fishing are from mistakes. Many deaths from policing are people intentionally trying to kill you. Maybe that comes into play. With deep sea fishing , if you're careful enough, you can drastically lower the death rate - it's in your hands. Not so with policing.
dTal 6y ago
Regarding this often-cited argument of "people can own guns, so cops need them" - in a situation with a gun, does it actually help if the cop also has a gun? Now you have a gunfight on your hands. By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. What's the actual problem with disarming the police completely, and having them call in a SWAT team in the rare event that someone actually threatens a cop with a firearm?
- gridlockd 6y ago
  Of course it helps to have a gun if your opponent has a gun, because both of you now have a risk of getting shot. If I know you don't have a gun because you're one of these unarmed cops, I can completely dominate the situation. I can make you stand on one leg and do a recital. > By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. Rocket launchers are not anti-personnel weapons and no ordinary criminal carries them or would be expected to carry them. The best weapon to neutralize a threat wielding a rocket launcher is not another rocket launcher, it's a rifle. Should we arrive at the situation where criminals routinely arrive in armored personnel carriers or tanks, then we can talk about arming the police with rocket launchers.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Right, so police need body armor, not handguns.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      Body armor might save your life, but it doesn't make you invincible to bullets. If you take a bullet with body armor, you're going down. You're no threat whatsoever. You have no power in the situation, you can't get it under control, mitigate the threat, and so on.
- michaelt 6y ago
  If you can easily get a $500 device that makes 95% of cops stop chasing you, wouldn't every rational violent criminal buy one? I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals...
Someone1234 6y ago
30-40% of police officer deaths aren't gun-related, they're traffic accidents[0] with another 30% being "job related illness"[1]. And in some years traffic accidents is the leading cause of deaths. About 50~ police officers die via guns per year. The police kill about 1,000 citizens per year via guns though[2]. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html [1] https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-d... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
- marcoperaza 6y ago
  It's worth noting that while every unjustified shooting is one too many, the vast vast majority of shootings by police are unambiguously justified. The US has a lot of violent criminals, many of who are bold enough to even try to kill police officers.
  - minikites 6y ago
    What evidence leads you to this conclusion?
    - marcoperaza 6y ago
      Both of these statements can be true: 1) the vast majority of shootings by police are justified, and 2) there are way too many cases of excessive use of force by police, including shootings. You can look at the reports. They don't usually leave local news, if they even make it there, because there is nothing remarkable about them. People have done aggregations of the data. I'm not saying it's going to convince you if you're already convinced otherwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/o... "But only a small number of the shootings — roughly 5 percent — occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats."
oblio 6y ago
What does Iceland have to do with anything? Those numbers are from the US.
scottoreily 6y ago
Found the delusional power hungry fascist. What’s it like to lack complete empathy?
kube-system 6y ago
I really haven't really heard anyone, even protestors, claim that police in the US should give up their guns. The recent high profile cases of deaths haven't been by gun, but with bare hands. Mostly, the discussion is around if/when deadly force should be used, no matter the implement.
- vanattab 6y ago
  Ummm... I mean the protesters around here want the Police completely disbanded...
  - kube-system 6y ago
    That doesn't mean there won't be police. Other cities have disbanded their police departments. All have been replaced with a new police department. The idea is to replace a poorly run department when reform isn't good enough. The idea isn't to have a completely unpoliced city. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-...
    - ajayh 6y ago
      Camden City PD was disbanded to reduce the costs of salaries and benefits with new union contracts. The CNN article doesn't even contain the word 'union'.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        That's beside the point. My reason for linking the example was to illustrate that departments have been disbanded before and it's a more aggressive strategy for change than attempting to reform an existing department, not a call for lawlessness. "disband the police" fits on a sign, but it's an incomplete statement.
- jberryman 6y ago
  I agree with that impression, and actually find it really puzzling that disarming police isn't a central message. I think it's very likely that if the police on George Floyd had been unarmed that eventually the bystanders would have intervened (at least I hope).

frank2 6y ago

I would worry more about PTSD than about death or injury if I was a cop. Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone intentionally tried to kill you. And doing violence to another person is also potent cause of PTSD. For those 2 reasons, I would expect rates of PTSD to be higher among cops than among the other 15 occupations you list. I would also worry that the habit of suspicion needed to be effective as a cop would be bad for my marriage and other relationships. In other words, I would worry that the work might make me pathologically cynical. Finally, some people really enjoy having power over others and using that power to inflict pain. Even if the other disadvantages of police work did not exist, it might be wise for me to avoid it just to pessimize the probability of my needing to work with someone like that. It is a complicated issue, but certainly I find such people distasteful and suspect that most adults in my country (the US) share my distaste.

wwright 6y ago
I would argue that this applies to the people being policed as well, if not more so. A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them. Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  At the jail I go to, there is more concern expressed by the prisoners about the destruction caused by the drugs than the drug sentences.
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    Because that's the narrative that gets your sentence reduced and what any lawyer would advise: from now on, publicly you'll condemn the drugs that got you here.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      No. You have no clue. It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out.

_iyig 6y ago

Would you say there's a difference in kind between the risk of death due to equipment failure or negligence, versus the risk of another human being actively trying to kill you? They seem different to me, but I'm not sure how to reason about the difference.

mseidl 6y ago
The actual homicide rate of cops is almost half of the normal population.
- _iyig 6y ago
  Interesting. Do you have a link? Those numbers are hard to Google, all the results I'm getting are for deaths caused by the police vs. of police themselves.
alistairSH 6y ago
Death-by-person probably less controllable than death-by-equipment-failure. But, in reality, I'm not sure that it is. There are processes/procedures to reduce the likelihood of both.
- _iyig 6y ago
  This is exactly what I'm struggling with. Intuitively, the idea of another person trying to injure me sounds scarier than a harness failing or tree falling. People can be a lot more unpredictable than gravity or metal fatigue. But then again, the safety of loggers and roofers depends not only on their own gear & diligence, but also on human co-workers who can be just as unpredictable. Versus violent criminals, at least the co-workers aren't actively and creatively malicious (usually).

mseidl 6y ago

Most of the deaths are accidents. Actual homicide rate of police are 3.0 per 100k vs 5.6 per 100k of regular people.

oh_sigh 6y ago
A more important question is what is the homicide rate of the demographics of people who go into policing. Probably lower than 3.0. It's easy to get a drastically lower personal chance of being murdered in the US through simple steps like not being part of a gang. Most Americans on HN aren't going to be murdered at 5.6/100000, or even 3.0
rabanne 6y ago
Can't believe people are citing this data. Comparing homicide statistics of people armed with guns being killed vs armed or unarmed regular people and thinking cops are safer than armed or unarmed regular people? Come on. How about we account assults? In 2018, 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult. Of them, 30.6% sustained injuries. In 13.2% of the incident, the attacker was prosecuted.[1] But the rate of aggravated assult against regular people is 0.2%. Clearance rate is 52.5%. Prosecution rate is much lower.[2] I really don't care about your ideology or anything, but saying police is a safe job is just stupid. 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult while armed. Let's see how things changes when police is forced not to be armed. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018
- learc83 6y ago
  10.8% faced “assault” is a very misleading statistic because “assault” as reported here is completely up to the discretion of the reporting officer. Only ~1/10 of these “assaults” are even prosecuted. If prosecutors aren’t even willing to charge someone with assaulting an officer, it probably wasn’t worth calling an “assault”.
  - rabanne 6y ago
    Even accounting for that rate, police faces 5x "prosecutable assults" more than a "reported assult" on a normal person. We don't know what "prosecutable assult" statistics on a normal person so we can't compare them directly, but the rate is approx. 67%[1]. Clearance rate is 52%, so it shows that while policing in US, you get approx. 15x more chance of facing "prosecutable assult". [1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/scpdvc.txt https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/scpdvc.txt

6510 6y ago

The danger also scales with the number of aggressive assholes wearing the same uniform. It is like any job where your coworkers don't do their job. Eventually you will be held responsible for their results. When the boss asks you about it you might be reluctant to point out your coworkers since you still have to work with them.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

I used to sell life insurance. Dangerous careers would be more expensive. When I was an agent in 2004-2005 in the USA, being a police person was not considered dangerous enough to warrant a rate increase. As a professional wrestler, you'd be lucky to get life insurance at any price.

hef19898 6y ago
Insurance rates are such an underrated source for risk assessment.
- sigwinch28 6y ago
  Though not always reliable (see: credit default swap pricing in the lead up to the financial crash in 2007/8).
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    A credit default swap is not an insurance contract; you're in the world of 'buyer beware' not 'utmost good faith'. Even the monoline insurance wrappers around the various credit products were very atypically constructed insurance contracts.
    - kansface 6y ago
      Not the swap itself, but the assessments provided by the ratings agencies.
- hypewatch 6y ago
  Are they? What’s the alternative that gets all the undeserved attention?
  - jasonjayr 6y ago
    Simple Death rates? Insurance rates are developed by financially-motivated actuaries that consider a whole bunch of variables in order to create market-efficient rates.

growlist 6y ago

I knew a really nice guy that ended up working in forestry in the US, and tragically died after backing into a powerline whilst up a tree in a harness cutting branches. Working with trees is so dangerous.

chrisbennet 6y ago

I would think logging would be less dangerous now. When a was growing up in Maine, loggers cut down trees with the chainsaw and pulled the trees into the wood yard with a tractor like skidder (skidah in Maine-speak). Now, they are more likely (I think) to use a machine that clips the tree off (like scissors) and takes the branches off.

aetherson 6y ago

I agree that being a police officer isn't as dangerous as cops would have you believe, but aggregating statistics for the whole profession probably hides some spikes of larger danger. Lots of cops work essentially desk jobs. Lots of cops work in safe, quiet jurisdictions. They're pulling down the average, while cops who are responders to 911 calls in high violent crime areas pull it up.

cycomanic 6y ago
There is a statistic somewhere (my googlefu can't find it at the moment), that shows that in less then 1% of the cases where police are called there is actually even the chance to intervene. In otherwords in 99% of the cases they come after the (possible) crime and are really just taking a statement. Still they walk into every situation with their hand on their gun. Often enough situations escalate because of that. I believe many situations would be much saver if the officers would not carry guns. Call the armed units for cases where it's warrented, like e.g. in New Zealand.

willcipriano 6y ago

>They are often paid quite well because its dangerous 2019 median pay for a police officer/detective: $65,170[0] 2019 median pay for high school teachers (often cited as underpaid): $61,660[1] [0]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/mobile/police-and-detectives.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/mobile/police-and... [1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobile/high-school-teachers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...

claudeganon 6y ago
Being a high school teacher is a far worse job than being a cop. Cops don’t even have to pretend they care about helping people.
_jal 6y ago
That omits overtime, which is a massive component of compensation in many departments. It also ignores after-hours gigs they can get because they're cops and pensions, which not so many get anymore. OT in Chicago: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/1/14/18343141/editorial-reining-in-chicago-s-six-figure-salary-club https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/1/14/18343141/editorial-re... : "In 2017, a sergeant who apparently never sleeps made $279,612, which included $158,917 in overtime pay. A detective made $285,070, including $144,926 in OT. In all, according to a Sun-Times report on Sunday, rank-and-file police officers in 2017 pulled in about 60 percent of the city’s overall overtime pay." Please point me to all the six-figure teaching opportunities.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  there are several counties in maryland where a teacher with an advanced degree and/or many years on the job can make around $100k. http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20182019Staff/20182019fSalarySchedules.pdf http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SS...
  - philg_jr 6y ago
    Same with eastern PA, Bucks County comes to mind. A friend of mine teaches middle school, has her masters degree, and makes north of 100k. The property taxes in Chester Country, Delaware County, and Bucks County definitely reflect the salaries. The schools in those areas are generally pretty good, I've heard.

prepend 6y ago

It reminds me of Taleb’s Extremeistan vs Mediocristan. I think it was in Fooled by Randomness. For police the danger comes in spikes with mostly non-dangerous work. For a lumberjack the danger is evenly distributed. So I think for police, it’s the constant low probability of great danger.

panzagl 6y ago

There's a continual mental impact of always dealing with the nasty side of humanity that I think often gets overlooked- everyone is always lying to you or hiding something, and you get to see a large number of dead kids and wasted lives.

greedo 6y ago
And a lot of the corrosiveness that cops have to suffer is from other cops. Racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia etc. If you're smart, you're excluded by IQ tests since departments prefer to avoid you. This ends up altering your worldview as an "Us versus Them" where there are cops and there are criminals. Everyone else is a potential criminal. Everyone is given side eye. The system is rigged, so why not put in for extra overtime. Bump up your salary the last three years so that your pension goes from a $90k/year basis to $175K. And if you think cops are out to protect you? What a joke. Cops are out to protect themselves first. They've been glamorized since the 1980s as "foot soldiers in the war on crime." Their unions have fought to protect the "few" bad apples, when the bunch is rotten. They go through the motions of "protecting" us, but that's just paperwork. Showing up and taking some notes. If you've ever had anything stolen, you'll know what I mean. The cop will write down some information, maybe give you his biz card, then that's the last you'll hear of it. They never do any leg work/investigation, unless it's something mandated by their bosses. Defund needs to happen soon. Spend the money on drug rehab, mental health, etc. We need less than half the cops we have, and no damn PD needs an MRAP.
- panzagl 6y ago
  I mostly don't agree with this as I know too many cops. The racism is tricky- if the only X people you saw were criminals, without any balance on the positive side it can very easily get into some sort of loop. And lots of places are like that in the US, for a variety of reasons- the cops see the bad side of X, without a balance of neighbors and other helpful examples to counterbalance. They're part of the problem, but they're also caused by the problem.
kilroy123 6y ago
This is exactly right. Growing up, my dad was a police officer. The mental part of being a cop dramatically affects officers and their families. Eventually, my dad got very injured on the job and had to quit. The mental part is what injured him the most.

vlovich123 6y ago

Something about this list is fishy. Where are the soldiers? Also I'm thinking this is just a simplistic comparison with a base death rate on the job (ignoring age & co-morbidity factors). Police often retire after 20 years so you're looking at the majority of the police force being under ~40-50. That's a significant point of comparison because other jobs you kind of just work until your body fails you (either through extra clumsiness, too much labor for the heart, etc). So the manner of fatal death & age are super important factors here that are ignored. I don't think it's helpful to say police don't actually have a dangerous job. It is perhaps helpful to consider other HNer comments like "You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop". That might explain the pay difference. More importantly, the entire framing is the problem. As soon as you're looking for reasons to cut officers slack, you're on the wrong side. Being a police officer should have at least the same seriousness, responsibility, training, & consequences (if not more) as being a lawyer, judge, doctor, etc. Probably more since they have greater training and capability to end a life and put themselves in such situations more frequently (& often instigate/escalate such situations whether through their own actions or their association with police).

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Where are the soldiers? I think the rate of death and injury where they weren't back to work in a couple of days for US troops in Iraq was a bit less than 2 in 100. * Note that most soldiers work in supply, administration, artillery, cooking, running the mail system, and things like that, and aren't exposed to any combat at all at any point in the careers. I can imagine refuse collector being more dangerous than that. * Death and Injury Rates of U.S. Military Personnel in Iraq , Goldberg, 2010
anoonmoose 6y ago
I would not expect soldiers to be included as the potential and expectation for death is much higher and generally totally different. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread if you're in the military you can legally be ordered to do something that will 100% result in your death with no ability to refuse, which is not true of any of the professions on that list.
hwillis 6y ago

nabilhat 6y ago

The original source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0], which is a bottomless rabbit hole of detail. Data quality side note... Others have pointed out before that a primary work related risk for nearly all of these professions is transportation. That's why the only landscapers we see on this list are the supervisors: supervisors are on the clock while they're behind the wheel, the workers aren't. Reading this data in a meaningful way requires consideration of transportation related risks. [0] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm

xapata 6y ago
Leading cause of death for peace corps volunteers is (was?) motorcycle accidents.

macspoofing 6y ago

>They are often paid quite well Big cities, yes. Small towns and rural areas, not so much. National average is around $60k/year - but the variance is high (from $30k to $120k - depending on the area). >But how dangerous is it? The numbers don't tell the entire story. There's a difference between danger coming from negligence vs from a chance of murder by another human. Soldiers coming back from Iraq suffered high numbers of PTSD, even though the mortality rate would probably be similar to one of the dangerous jobs you listed. Not only that Police have to deal with the darkest sides of society, including scenes of murder, rape and violence even against the most innocent of our society - like children. 'Police' is a type of job that is closer to the military example I gave, than to a logger or fisherman.

brightball 6y ago

I believe that ranking shows based on statistics but the real X-factor in Police vs everything that ranks above them is "other people" or your sense of control of the situation. Think about why many people are fine with driving but fear flying, despite flying being significantly statistically safer. The difference is that when you're driving, you feel in control. The same is true of all the professions listed as more dangerous than police here. If you're following your training and the safety protocols that go with it, safety isn't a huge concern with any of them. For police, they respond to 911 calls and serve arrest warrants. A huge part of their job is getting called to potentially dangerous scenes with people who may or may not be armed, may be violent, may fire at them, may ambush them, etc. This is a recent national story from my hometown that illustrates it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/south-carolina-police-shooting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/south-carolina-police-... I can't imagine being more fearful about logging than worrying that something like this would be on the other end of one of the dozens of 911 calls I'm asked to respond to each day.

im3w1l 6y ago

I can't help but think of this xkcd https://xkcd.com/795 https://xkcd.com/795 The title is conditional risk. The characters reason that since very few people die of thunderstorms, they don't need to take any precautions. The point is of course, that the reason that so few people die of lightning is that people are sensible and avoid danger. And that if you are reckless then you will be at much higher risk than the average person. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case here. But it's a hypothesis that I think needs refutation.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> 16 Police and sheriff’s patrol officers Also of note, the primary reason police are even this high is for the same reason as truck drivers -- traffic accidents.

steve76 6y ago

Breachers on a SWAT teams take their job into consideration when clipping their fingernails. Thousands of hours of intense training. Complete devotion or death. How many on your list take their job that seriously? Also go across the southern border, where a police officer is murdered everyday. You contribute to that through drugs and human trafficking. If we do what you say, that gets worse, and that comes here. "What explains these two armed forces’ divergent attitudes toward bad behavior?" In war, the first lesson you learn is you are going to die here. It's quite a sobering attitude, like living in a hospice. Why beat someone up when you can just burn down their aircraft carrier with napalm, likely dying horribly or crippling or maiming yourself for life doing it. Police, the only rule is just come home. Contain the violence, protect the public, don't escalate as you live there. People deserve the policing we get. No riots, no SWAT teams, not even locks on doors if people can lay off the elephant tranquilizer.