Being a police officer can be rewarding but also involve abuse and danger. Patrol officers handle a range of tasks, while detectives investigate crimes. Specialized police units, such as SWAT teams, require more training and involve higher risk.
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 on a daily basis, doing really important work and getting a decent paycheck for it. At the same time, it can mean taking a fair amount of abuse on a daily basis from citizens, receiving little respect, and being harmed on a regular basis. Of course, police work experience can vary greatly depending on what kind of police officer you become, who you are, and where you work.
When most people think about being a police officer, they think about being a police officer. These patrol officers are the ones people see on a daily basis, walking or driving through the streets, keeping an eye out for laws being broken. They respond to calls to handle everything from armed robberies, domestic disputes and 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 may have the vast majority of his job made up of taking care of minor infractions. Catching people vandalizing walls, young people after curfew, and skateboarding are small things that being a police officer can mean taking care of. Car accidents also usually require a police officer to check that everything is okay, and sometimes to help manage traffic. Police officers may also be liable for traffic violations within city limits, pulling over speeding drivers, drunk driving, or reckless driving.
Even small towns also often have police detectives. Being a police officer of this type involves a bit more specialized work, investigating crimes behind the scenes to try to determine what happened. Although modern detectives have little in common with fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes, however, they manage to do their fair share of actually solving crimes, and many people with an analytical mind might find this to be the job for them.
In larger cities, there are many different types of police, each specializing in a specific area of law enforcement. Some police officers focus on homicide, for example, and so the vast majority of their work involves dealing with murder or manslaughter. While this can be a difficult field to work in, as it is often surrounded by extremely gruesome deaths, it can also be very rewarding as criminals can be brought to justice and a sense of peace can be bestowed on the bereaved family.
People who are attracted 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 right decision. Aside from normal law enforcement courses, joining something like a SWAT team often involves much more rigorous training and, ideally, a background in something like the military. Pay for these specialized branches tends to be higher than for regular police officers, but the risk involved can also be much higher.
Asset Smart.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
