4 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks that police officers should be paid more, not less? These should be highly specialized and trained jobs that are hard to get and ea

Am I the only one who thinks that police officers should be paid more, not less? These should be highly specialized and trained jobs that are hard to get and easy to lose if you're bad at them / criminal -- seems like the reality right now is that they're easy to get and hard to lose.

JackPoach 5y ago
Probably, but so should teachers, nurses, etc. Can you name one occupation outside politics/lawyers where you think people should be paid less?
- mtrower 5y ago
  Telemarketers. =)
  - JackPoach 5y ago
    When I was a student they used to get minimum wage. You can't go lower than that. Absolutely terrible way to make a living. 'Lucky' for us, it's now mostly pre-recorded robocalls.
pp19dd 5y ago
Yes, but the accounting is not as clear as you'd think. It's a complicated relationship between understrength departments with unfilled vacancies, and overtime budgets. Police officers throughout the country, but especially in cities, tend to supplement large portions of their income through overtime work. It means they're chronically underpaid for what they do throughout the country. And the way they bring themselves to what they want to be making is through exhausting themselves with overwork. In Baltimore, some officers doubled their salaries. Others approached 50%. They averaged 12+ hour shifts per day for weeks. In fy 2019, a BPD sergeant made $260,000. The department went $50 million over budget for overtime. There are virtually entire books written on this, piecemealed in small budget stories throughout USA.
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
I agree that an effective police force probably needs to see their job as a profession and a career and that investment into officers is important, but also I think cops are already well paid. Cops in my area cross six figures within about 5 years of joining (this is informed by police officers I know but probably far from uniform) and they get some of the best pension benefits available and have to work far less time than most other professions to receive full retirement benefits. My understanding with my state's troopers is that they can retire with 75% of their highest earning years after working 25 years, or 50% after working 20 years. Raising compensation from that level would make them some of the most well paid workers in the state and they only require 6 months of training.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  “ The paper looked at the life expectancy for 2,800 male police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., who spent at least five years on the force between 1950 and 2005. It compared the officers’ life expectancy with that of the overall white male population of the United States. The researchers excluded women and minority officers because they accounted for a small percentage of the potential pool, which would have made it hard to conduct statistically valid comparisons. According to the study, officers in the study had a "significantly lower" life expectancy than U.S. white men as a whole, with the gap especially large for those at younger ages. Specifically, the study found that an officer who lived to age 50 could expect to live only 7.8 additional years, while a typical U.S. white man was expected to live an additional 35 years. Calculations using a different metric known as the years of potential life lost found a similar disparity. The years of potential life lost for police officers aged 40 to 44 was more than 38 times bigger than it was for the population as a whole, and the average for all age groups was 21 times bigger. Finally, using a third metric, the study found that a male police officer aged 50 to 54 years had "close to a 40% probability of death compared to a 1% probability for males in the general population in that same age category."” It’s possible that because they live less, one could argue they should be compensated more to account for their more imminent death.
  - whydoibother 5y ago
    That paper doesn't show a causal link. Just that a certain subgroup within a narrow region happened to die earlier. Any number of factors could cause that, independent of profession.
frankbreetz 5y ago
I can agree, but I think higher pay should come with more qualification. The qualifications for police officers are laughably bad https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/11/ohio-requires-fewer-hours-training-police-officers-than-barbers-could-change/5318372002/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/11/ohio-requir...
- Corrado 5y ago
  In my city, the qualifications for being a LEO keep dropping. It used to be that you had to have some college credit hours, which degraded to completing high school, which degraded to at least a GED. Now, I think you just have to apply and be able to pass the physical; there is basically no mental standard. On top of this, the budget is so tight that they basically have one day at the range for training. So, yes, I agree that LEOs should get better benefits (salary, car, insurance, etc.) as well as much more training. Maybe then we can have LEOs that can handle the job instead of young men with inferiority complexes that just want to bully people.
newsclues 5y ago
4 days a week of work, 1 day of training.
yardie 5y ago
Depending on the municipality (ie, tax payers) police are paid really well or really poorly. My city, Miami, police probationaries start at $55k, and that's just a high school diploma. On the flipside, the highway patrol, who work the same areas, start at $37k.
camel_Snake 5y ago
Are you aware how much LEO actually make, once you factor in overtime pay and the clever way they rig their pension amounts? It's probably higher than you'd think.

JackPoach 5y ago

Probably, but so should teachers, nurses, etc. Can you name one occupation outside politics/lawyers where you think people should be paid less?

mtrower 5y ago
Telemarketers. =)
- JackPoach 5y ago
  When I was a student they used to get minimum wage. You can't go lower than that. Absolutely terrible way to make a living. 'Lucky' for us, it's now mostly pre-recorded robocalls.

pp19dd 5y ago

Yes, but the accounting is not as clear as you'd think. It's a complicated relationship between understrength departments with unfilled vacancies, and overtime budgets. Police officers throughout the country, but especially in cities, tend to supplement large portions of their income through overtime work. It means they're chronically underpaid for what they do throughout the country. And the way they bring themselves to what they want to be making is through exhausting themselves with overwork. In Baltimore, some officers doubled their salaries. Others approached 50%. They averaged 12+ hour shifts per day for weeks. In fy 2019, a BPD sergeant made $260,000. The department went $50 million over budget for overtime. There are virtually entire books written on this, piecemealed in small budget stories throughout USA.

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

I agree that an effective police force probably needs to see their job as a profession and a career and that investment into officers is important, but also I think cops are already well paid. Cops in my area cross six figures within about 5 years of joining (this is informed by police officers I know but probably far from uniform) and they get some of the best pension benefits available and have to work far less time than most other professions to receive full retirement benefits. My understanding with my state's troopers is that they can retire with 75% of their highest earning years after working 25 years, or 50% after working 20 years. Raising compensation from that level would make them some of the most well paid workers in the state and they only require 6 months of training.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ The paper looked at the life expectancy for 2,800 male police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., who spent at least five years on the force between 1950 and 2005. It compared the officers’ life expectancy with that of the overall white male population of the United States. The researchers excluded women and minority officers because they accounted for a small percentage of the potential pool, which would have made it hard to conduct statistically valid comparisons. According to the study, officers in the study had a "significantly lower" life expectancy than U.S. white men as a whole, with the gap especially large for those at younger ages. Specifically, the study found that an officer who lived to age 50 could expect to live only 7.8 additional years, while a typical U.S. white man was expected to live an additional 35 years. Calculations using a different metric known as the years of potential life lost found a similar disparity. The years of potential life lost for police officers aged 40 to 44 was more than 38 times bigger than it was for the population as a whole, and the average for all age groups was 21 times bigger. Finally, using a third metric, the study found that a male police officer aged 50 to 54 years had "close to a 40% probability of death compared to a 1% probability for males in the general population in that same age category."” It’s possible that because they live less, one could argue they should be compensated more to account for their more imminent death.
- whydoibother 5y ago
  That paper doesn't show a causal link. Just that a certain subgroup within a narrow region happened to die earlier. Any number of factors could cause that, independent of profession.

frankbreetz 5y ago

I can agree, but I think higher pay should come with more qualification. The qualifications for police officers are laughably bad https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/11/ohio-requires-fewer-hours-training-police-officers-than-barbers-could-change/5318372002/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/11/ohio-requir...

Corrado 5y ago
In my city, the qualifications for being a LEO keep dropping. It used to be that you had to have some college credit hours, which degraded to completing high school, which degraded to at least a GED. Now, I think you just have to apply and be able to pass the physical; there is basically no mental standard. On top of this, the budget is so tight that they basically have one day at the range for training. So, yes, I agree that LEOs should get better benefits (salary, car, insurance, etc.) as well as much more training. Maybe then we can have LEOs that can handle the job instead of young men with inferiority complexes that just want to bully people.

newsclues 5y ago

4 days a week of work, 1 day of training.

yardie 5y ago

Depending on the municipality (ie, tax payers) police are paid really well or really poorly. My city, Miami, police probationaries start at $55k, and that's just a high school diploma. On the flipside, the highway patrol, who work the same areas, start at $37k.

camel_Snake 5y ago

Are you aware how much LEO actually make, once you factor in overtime pay and the clever way they rig their pension amounts? It's probably higher than you'd think.