Career Spotlight: Police Officer

The career of a police officer can be rewarding and mostly involve different responsibilities

. Basically a police officer is a key personnel that helps in maintaining law and order, collect evidence and conduct criminal investigations. In order to keep residents safe, a police officer might have to patrol a neighborhood, respond to a call for help or participate in a SWAT team raid. It wont be wrong to say that a police officer generally acts as a law enforcement agent and their prime job is to protect the peace, life and property of society people.

Apart from this, the career even offers tremendous opportunities to handle different responsibilities and work as:

Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff: Working as a deputy sheriff, the duty of a police officer may involve enforcing the law on the county level. Sheriffs are elected to their posts and perform similar duties to those of a local or county police chief.

Urban Police Officer: An urban police officer generally follows general law enforcement duties including maintaining regular patrols (in a specific area) and responding to calls for help.

State Police Officer: A state police officer is generally known as a highway patrol officer and their key responsibility is arresting criminals state-wide and patrol highways to enforce motor vehicle laws and regulations come in their list of work.

In addition to all these, after working as a police officer for a while an individual can also try to get promoted to another rank such as a detective. This is yet another interesting position where individual requires more analyzing and crime solving skills. It is their prime responsibility to interview and cross-examine suspects and gather clues to solve a crime.

Salary of a Police Officer

If we carefully look at the salary, normally an entry level police officer starts his salary from $31,101-$46,367 and as gain more experience or posts the salary might reach up to $81,112. Besides this, a newly joined detective can have a median salary of $24,000 and might earn up to $92,115 with his experience.

How to become a Police Officer

Considering the work responsibilities it cannot be denied that pursuing a career of a police officer is not always trouble-free. It might seem exciting and adventurous, but to get started in this field is not easy. As a result, genuine hard work and a proper training are highly recommended.

Taking up a job as a police officer an individual must meet some of the basic educational qualifications and need collage credits. A police officer needs a high school diploma or its equivalent. Although, getting a higher education degree is usually not required, but acquiring an associate's degree (2-year degree) or a bachelor's degree (4-year degree) is highly recommended by many law enforcement agencies. Now once an individual gets accepted by a law enforcement agency, he or she receives 12 to 14 weeks of training in a police academy. The training basically includes classroom instruction in constitutional law and civil rights, local ordinances, state laws and accident investigation. Adding to all this, at times the criminal justice courses can be very helpful to an individual who wish to work as one of the city's dedicated law enforcement agents. In fact, these days many agencies pay all or part of the tuition for officers to earn a degree in criminal justice or justice administration.

Certainly, today the career prospect for a police officer is surely very good and in next few years many job openings are going to boom. If you have the qualities required being a police officer and wanting a decent paying job, getting a proper training and education can be one of the finest ways to make a career in this profession.

by: Subhash Kandpal

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