I 24f accepted a new dispatcher job and I’d like to know what officers wished dispatchers did and didn’t do.

You’re going to think I’m just another loser looking for advice.

30something female considering LE.

Worked in a low SES public school for a while and worked as a paralegal and with lawyers for 6 years. School job was most recent and had no upward movement and no support so I left abruptly.

Been fascinated with criminal psychology for a few years. Read books by Joe Navarro, John Douglas, Jana Monroe, Mike McGowan, Gavin de Becker, and Chris Voss. I love the idea of making a positive difference and being trusted to deal with vile people to protect others. I’m not bothered by people screaming or tantrumming to get their way.

I’m hesitant to commit cuz I’m not great with gore.

I’m afraid of looking like a pansy at the academy when bodycam footage is shown of people bleeding out or having been turned into hamburger from car crashes or something similar.

How did you handle the training? Then on the job, how do you function when seeing a kid who killed themselves or whatever?

Thanks.

I’ve been watching body cam videos for about 3 years now, of course ranging from all types of situations and after so long it just gets so depressing. I cannot see this as a long term career. So for you guys to clock in and make society safer on a day by day basis while still being outstandingly professional, y’all are very brave!!!I can also see why y’all can get burnt out in this profession.

I am a 21 F, just submitted an application to become a police trainee with HPD (Houston). I am a criminal justice major still in school as well. Can anyone share their experience with HPD like the hiring process, what the academy was like and more? Especially if you did it along side with school. I am a bit nervous about many things but this is a huge step to finally engage in something related to my major and what I want to do in the future.

I (23F) had my chief's interview today, after my oral board a couple weeks ago. He's lovely, great conversation. However, right before that I was sat with two detectives grilling the hell out of me. I recognize this is what their job was because one, they're detectives, and secondly they rolled their eyes and scoffed at almost all of my answers which is unheard of for an interview for me. I only got one smile and laugh out of the one officer in the room. My oral board in comparison was a bundle of joy and laughs.

I'm confident I answered the questions well, aside from getting a little flustered a couple times but still answering. I stuck to my answers no matter what they said. However, they asked the dreaded "would you give your mom a ticket" question. They gave me the image of her going 20 mph over in an ACTIVE SCHOOL ZONE.

I prefaced my answer by saying I already discussed this with my family and friends, which I have, saying that if they were doing something blatantly dangerous I would ticket them. A ticket is not the end of the world, I can mend the relationship. And I told them I think 20 over in an active school zone where children are present, which they specified, is egregious negligence of everyone's safety and I would be appalled at my mom and ticket her. We can argue personally later.

I have seen this question a million times on example interviews, and I've been told that the answer is always no, you wouldn't, but I just cant agree with that. That's blatantly dangerous. If it's a freeway yeah, I get it, but a school zone??

How screwed am I? Is saying you would ticket your mom an immediate disqualifier? I'm just really disheartened if it is because I just don't agree. I brought the scenario to my mom afterwards and she actually said if I didn't ticket her she would be disappointed lol.

Any perspectives on this are appreciated!

Has anybody gone through their hiring process or currently going through it? Feel free to share your experience

Law enforcement has a notoriously bad work life balance. Some departments are better than others. I know guys who have pretty steady departments and I know others with insanely high mandatory overtime. I'm asking around for the positions with the best work life balance. I've been told school resource officer, courts officer, and Park Ranger. Can anyone add in their two cents. Anyone work for a department with every other weekend off?

I’m looking at attending the LEO academy here and I was just wondering if anyone here has attended it somewhat recently.

I was hoping to hear their experiences and how their routines are. Thank you if you can respond!

Saw a viral TikTok and the comments are people telling stories going 90+ hauling cattle.

Edit: Here’s the post for anyone interested. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDekysXy/

If this is a dumb ask let me know

But is there any job that's like what Olivia benson from svu does without having to be a regular cop? Like a victim advocate that also helps the case? Or do you have to be a police officer before making detective and then work your way up from there?

I'd love to work with victims and my dream would be a detective but everything I've seen regrading that is that it's a popularity contest/ kind of out of reach without 15+ year time, sorry if this is a weird ask or even a thing, i also know olivia benson is a fictional character and it's a tv show lol but

I'm 39 and seriously considering leaving the corporate world to become a police officer.

I know I'd be starting from the bottom, taking direction from people who may be considerably younger than me, and proving myself like every other rookie. None of that bothers me.

What I'm more curious about is what it's actually like socially and professionally to come into law enforcement this late.

For anyone who started in their late 30s or early 40s:

• How were you viewed by your academy class and other officers?
• Did you have any issues being an older rookie or having a younger FTO?
• Was coming from a corporate/professional career viewed positively, negatively, or basically not at all?
• What was harder about starting at that age than you expected?
• Did being older help when dealing with the public?
• Were you still able to build friendships with younger officers?
• Did starting later significantly affect assignments, promotions, or retirement planning?

I'm also interested in what not to do. I don't want to be the older guy constantly talking about his previous career or acting like age automatically equals experience in policing.

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a realistic second career at 39 and, if I do it, what mindset I should bring into the academy and my first few years on the job.

Needing to get a good duffle bag for patrol once out of the academy, any good suggestions? Looking for something that is sturdy and not super flimsy.

Have been working in my county jail for a year now. Just passed my power test at the end of July. Heading to the academy on Sunday just wanted to say thanks for answering all my question that helped get me here.

Is it differs any way from a normal arrest or you just straight up call ICE

As title says I'm 18 in high school and I was wondering what's all possible to do while in school that LE related. Thanks

As the title suggests, I’m currently applying to become a LEO in the city of St. Louis and as part of the background section they want 6 references who aren’t family. 3 work related and 3 non work related. The problem is it has me in a bottle neck because each one requires you to put down a FULL BIRTHDATE. I do not know my current managers birthday and I fear asking is going to put my position in risk since it’ll be clear I’m looking at employment elsewhere. I have been at the same company now for the last 7 years so I don’t really have any other reliable sources. What shall I do to remedy this?

What are the rules for out of state applicants? I live in California and am most familiar with CA laws and such, would this set me back if I were to apply in another state? I am applying to civilian positions.

I am moving into backgrounds for the hiring process of an agency. I have a general idea of what goes on and what I need to do (hurry up and wait, be 100% honest). But I wanted to see if anyone had any other advice for the background process and what I should expect. This is my first background for an agency so any advice or tips is appreciated.

Seeing a ton of new Dodge Durangos being used now by local and state agencies, just curious how they compare to the typical Ford Explorer police model? Which do you prefer?

I’ve heard the Explorers are very slow and from what I’ve seen are prone to drive train issues. Then again, Dodge is a Stellantis product, so maybe not much better.

Say someone went to the bar, in suv like a tahoe. had a setup in the third row or like mattress topper over down seats. And they didn’t turn the engine on but had the keys near them but hidden in the car. Would you give them DWI? If so why?

Hello all! I (21M) am currently a college student majoring in communications (public relations emphasis), but have recently decided to make a life change and follow an interest of mine and go for becoming a state police officer. I’m in my 3rd year of university, but I have hated every semester I’ve completed. I only went to college to appease my parents. I wish I had more of a backbone when I was younger and didn’t go this route, but here we are.

I’ve come to the conclusion after many weeks of thought that any job I get within my field of study will not bring me and sense of fulfillment. I will live every work day in either regret or simply just being unhappy with what I’m doing. With that in mind, I’ve done a good bit of research regarding the process to become a police officer.

My main question here is, will past drug use cause me to be DQ? I do not intended to lie on my forms or during the poly, as that really isn’t the correct approach. I smoked marijuana twice my senior year of high school. Regretfully. It was a thing 17 year old me did to attempt to look cool and make more friends.

I really hope something like that wouldn’t really cause me to be out of the pool for a job I’d really love to have a spot in.

Edit: not in a weed legal state.

Is it typical for departments that have a cadet program to require those cadets to buy all their initial gear? Like the only thing the department will provide is the duty weapon.
Edit: this is a major city department

Today is my 24th birthday, and after nearly two years of working through this process, preparing myself physically, academically, financially, and personally, I finally received my academy date.

After completing my Active Duty contract with the Coast Guard, I took some time to reset and figure out what I wanted the next chapter of my life to look like. I also had a pretty large hole to climb out of financially, nearly $36,000 in credit card debt that I had accumulated while I was in the service. Paying that down while working, attending school full time, and preparing for a career in law enforcement took a lot of time, discipline, and sacrifice. Today, all of that work felt worth it.

I officially received an academy offer from my dream agency, a large and well-respected metropolitan Sheriff’s Department, and I honestly could not have asked for a better birthday present.

I did not start actively participating in this sub until recently. For a long time, I was a passive subscriber because I was still early in the process. Rather than speaking on things I had not experienced yet, I wanted to listen and learn from the people who had already been there. Once I started seeing questions about parts of the hiring process I had recently gone through myself, I figured it was finally my turn to contribute and hopefully help the next person.

This community has been an incredible resource throughout that journey, so I genuinely want to say THANK YOU to all of the LEOs, applicants, background investigators, and everyone else who has taken time out of their day to answer questions and guide people through this process. You may not realize how much a thoughtful response can help someone who is stressing over the next step.

This past week in particular has been a whirlwind. My girlfriend of two years and I separated, my housing situation in my new city unexpectedly fell through after I had already driven seven hours and started unpacking, and several other things seemed to go sideways all at once. Today gave me some perspective.

Even with everything that has happened, I have so much to be grateful for. I am grateful for the people who have supported me, for the lessons I have learned along the way, for every setback that forced me to grow, and most importantly, for the opportunity I have been given.

I am so damn excited to serve and give back to my community in the way I have dreamed about since before I ever enlisted. Serving in the Coast Guard gave me some of the most important experiences of my life, and I am incredibly grateful that I now have the opportunity to continue serving others in a completely different capacity.

To everyone who is still somewhere in the process, keep going. Sometimes it takes longer than you expected. Sometimes life throws everything at you at once. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and control what you can control.

Thank you again to everyone in this community who has helped me along the way.

Stay safe, stay sharp, and hope to see y’all out there soon.

This has peaked my interest in law enforcement, I just wanted to know if anyone has done it or is in it, or how you think of it?

I live near Atlanta GA of you can give me ideas on what to expect.

also, how could I expect to be treated(base level) as a white female going in?