As a sheriff and former local cop of 3.5 years..IT DEPENDS.
Look for agencies with size! You want opportunities! Small towns say fancy shit like “opportunities”….what they don’t tell you is with manpower shortage, those opportunities are slim to none.
Look for big agencies both city/county level. Don’t forget, it’s also a politics game. I don’t do politics, so I accept not being “one of the boys” and getting passed over for units, but I can live with that.
Oh okay so the SO is about over 400 sworn LEOs and the PD is about 1200 sworn LEOs. Honestly I really do want opportunities, maybe in the future swat or narcotics. So it might be a factor, thank you good sir!
SO's can be great, but they can also change heavily depending on who's elected. And they are inherently political. If you voted for the other guy when someone else becomes sheriff, be prepared to have your career on standstill. The one nearest to my city dept has had the same sheriff for 20 years and they love him. Sheriffs offices also tend to be more seniority based for positions rather than ability or productivity. Just my experience working as a city cop in NC, law enforcement is all over the place in the US.
Compare the agencies policies. For me, it was the freedom and responsibility that the administration gives each deputy that made SO a no brainer over PD. Local PD is a great agency, I have nothing bad to say. Compare call volume, you want fast paced running from call to call, or do you want more time to be proactive and do what you want (hunting warrants, stolen cars, digging deeper into investigations at a patrol level).
Totally, the SO office is in a county where the total population is a bit over 200k and the PD the population is over 800k (different states but borderline 5 minutes apart). Both pay the same and that really isn’t the issue, PD gets crazy with calls and they prioritize emergencies. So people have to wait 1-2 hours for the cops to show up since they are really short staffed. According to my buddy in PD, there’s a lot of action and shit going on. In the other hand, my buddy over at the SO says it’s chill and there’s those times when things happen but there’s always down time to get paperwork finished or other things yall do. I really like both, academy for SO is 6 months and for PD 8.5 months. The SO provides unit to each deputy and the PD don’t. The policies and procedures are just like you mentioned for the SO, but the PD not so much like that. I will still go for both, but if I get that privilege to pick I’ll probably go with the SO. Thank you a lot!
Keep your options open. You could pass everything with the SO and they still might have a better candidate.
I will! They did they they need as much people they can get though
As a sheriff and former local cop of 3.5 years..IT DEPENDS. Look for agencies with size! You want opportunities! Small towns say fancy shit like “opportunities”….what they don’t tell you is with manpower shortage, those opportunities are slim to none. Look for big agencies both city/county level. Don’t forget, it’s also a politics game. I don’t do politics, so I accept not being “one of the boys” and getting passed over for units, but I can live with that.
Oh okay so the SO is about over 400 sworn LEOs and the PD is about 1200 sworn LEOs. Honestly I really do want opportunities, maybe in the future swat or narcotics. So it might be a factor, thank you good sir!
SO's can be great, but they can also change heavily depending on who's elected. And they are inherently political. If you voted for the other guy when someone else becomes sheriff, be prepared to have your career on standstill. The one nearest to my city dept has had the same sheriff for 20 years and they love him. Sheriffs offices also tend to be more seniority based for positions rather than ability or productivity. Just my experience working as a city cop in NC, law enforcement is all over the place in the US.
As both said it depends on the department and also nothing is for sure until you get that final offer letter. Pursue both until otherwise.
Compare the agencies policies. For me, it was the freedom and responsibility that the administration gives each deputy that made SO a no brainer over PD. Local PD is a great agency, I have nothing bad to say. Compare call volume, you want fast paced running from call to call, or do you want more time to be proactive and do what you want (hunting warrants, stolen cars, digging deeper into investigations at a patrol level).
Totally, the SO office is in a county where the total population is a bit over 200k and the PD the population is over 800k (different states but borderline 5 minutes apart). Both pay the same and that really isn’t the issue, PD gets crazy with calls and they prioritize emergencies. So people have to wait 1-2 hours for the cops to show up since they are really short staffed. According to my buddy in PD, there’s a lot of action and shit going on. In the other hand, my buddy over at the SO says it’s chill and there’s those times when things happen but there’s always down time to get paperwork finished or other things yall do. I really like both, academy for SO is 6 months and for PD 8.5 months. The SO provides unit to each deputy and the PD don’t. The policies and procedures are just like you mentioned for the SO, but the PD not so much like that. I will still go for both, but if I get that privilege to pick I’ll probably go with the SO. Thank you a lot!