Being a police officer can be rewarding, but also dangerous and involve abuse. Different types of officers exist, from street patrol to detectives and specialized branches like narcotics or SWAT teams. Job experience varies depending on location and type of officer.
For the right person, being a police officer can be one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. Under the right circumstances, working as a police officer means helping people every day, doing work that really matters, and getting a decent salary for it. At the same time, it can mean taking a good deal of abuse on a daily basis from citizens, receiving little respect, and being endangered on a regular basis. Of course, police work experience can vary widely, depending on what kind of officer you become, who you are, and where you work.
When most people think they’re a police officer, they think they’re a good cop. These street patrol officers are the officers that people see every day, walking or driving the streets, keeping their eyes peeled for breaking the laws. They take calls to deal with everything from armed robberies, to domestic disputes, to accidents. Depending on where a patrol officer is stationed, the job can be intense and dangerous, or it can be quite mundane and boring.
In a small town, a patrol officer can have the vast majority of their job done taking care of minor infractions. Catching people vandalizing walls, youth after curfew, and jaywalking are all little things being a police officer can mean taking care of. Car accidents also usually require a police officer to make sure all is well, and sometimes to help manage traffic. Police officers may also take responsibility for traffic violations within city limits, cornering motorists who speed, drive while intoxicated, or drive recklessly.
Even small towns often have officers who are detectives. Being such a police officer involves doing a little more specialized work, looking into behind-the-scenes crimes to try and determine what happened. While modern day detectives have little in common with fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes, they nevertheless manage to do their fair share of actually solving crimes, and many analytically minded people may find this to be the job for them.
In larger cities, there are many different types of police officers, each specializing in a particular area of law enforcement. Some officers focus on homicide, for example, and thus the vast majority of their work involves dealing with homicide or manslaughter. While this can be a difficult field to work in, as one is often surrounded by extremely gruesome dead people, it can also be very rewarding, as criminals can be brought to justice and a sense of peace afforded to the grieving family.
People who find themselves drawn to a more dangerous and adventurous type of law enforcement may decide that joining a narcotics division or a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team is the move for them. In addition to regular law enforcement courses, joining something like a SWAT team often involves much more rigorous training and ideally a background in something like the military. The salaries for such specialized branches tend to be higher than that of regular patrol cops, but the risk can also be much higher.
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