
Originally Posted by
waffles
When I was looking into it (2014-15) with a couple of departments out here it was generally four year degree or military, plus of course laterals. At the time it skewed more towards military service though there were a bunch of people with degrees that I interacted with.
I'm actually more in favor of getting people that view it as a paycheck rather than a way of life, but it has to be a good paycheck. The Denver metro's average police salary is somewhere around $60k, which isn't too bad, though you're definitely going to be feeling the squeeze if you're single income with our current cost of living.
That's not the case everywhere, I know an Atlanta cop making $44k/yr, and we knew a family friend making 16/hr as a cop elsewhere in the southeast, and heard similar stories outside of the large cities. Those are just comically low, and you get what you pay for. To top it off, even the higher end mid-career salaries of Denver metro salaries aren't what you need to attract and retain top talent. Not everywhere is like this of course, and some state and a lot of federal agencies realize this and are paying accordingly. I've gotten to interact with a number of IRS Special Agents, for example, and they are well paid, sharp, and exceedingly professional, as you'd expect out of someone making a similar salary in the corporate world. Granted, those aren't patrol positions, but we should still expect that if we want the same qualities the rest of the job market wants like intelligence, attention to detail, integrity, patience, and people skills, we have to pay for them.