Читать книгу Police in America - Steven G. Brandl - Страница 82

Police officer salaries vary considerably across states. The most recent statistics available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show western states tend to provide the highest police officer salaries, southern states the lowest. For example, at the extremes are California with an average salary for officers of $96,660 and Mississippi with an average salary of $34,550. Much of the salary differences across states is a result of cost of living differences, tax base differences, as well as police labor union representation. Even within states and within counties, however, there is typically much variation in police officer salaries. For example, within St. Louis County, Missouri, police officers who work in the City of Town and County have an average annual salary of three times that provided to officers in Hillsdale.¹ In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, there are 109 police departments. Some residents of the county are served by officers whose starting salary is $40 an hour (Castle Shannon), while others are served by part-time officers who earn $10 an hour.² In Wayne County, Michigan, Detroit Police Department (DPD) officers have a starting base salary of $39,545 while the City of Warren, just 15 miles away, provides a starting salary of nearly $80,000. The general pattern is that police officers who work in communities with the highest crime rates are also the lowest paid, and these officers are more likely to leave when other opportunities arise. In 2018, Warren hired 12 new officers, six were previously employed by the DPD and the other six were previously employed by other police departments in Michigan.³

What do you think might be the consequences of substantial differences in pay among officers in different agencies, if any? Explain.

Description

Figure 3.1 Annual Mean Wage of Police and Sheriff’s Patrol Officers, by State, May 2017

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2017”.

Chapter 3 provides an introduction to the nature and management of police departments and describes the characteristics of law enforcement agencies at each level of government.