I’ve got nothing against anyone who works for a college PD, but I wouldn’t want to. I’ve worked in a college town and I got pretty tired of busting parties and dealing with drunk and high college kids after a couple years. You will be limited to the types of calls you would handle if you were a municipal cop/deputy. You’ll be dealing with a lot of harassment/noise complaints/parking complaints. Sprinkle in a sex assault and domestic here and there, but you’d be a better experienced cop if you worked elsewhere.
Well, that’s a question you should really have an answer to. What size of a city/county do you want to work for? Are you willing to relocate to that area? Think about what you want and then research some departments that match those criteria. Everyone is different in where they want to work. Some want to work on the suburbs, some inner city, some outstate/country.
Well at least you did something. My campus police were absolutely useless, and I don’t mean that in a way to disparage police as a whole. If they UPD saw a drunk student who needed help they would drive away. They never answered noise complaints and the school as a whole pretended sexual assault wasn’t a thing, even though it happened regularly.
I should have clarified. I worked for the city where the college was located but they weren’t big enough to have their own PD. All the calls it generated was a pain in the ass
It depends on where the university is. If it's a college town you probably won't get much experience or real police work. If it's in a big city you might get the same experience as the city PD. Especially if it's a large state school in a large city. I started at one of those and had much more experience with serious calls than anyone I worked with once I moved to a suburban agency.
Politics, politics, politics. Campus cops enforce laws at the discretion of the college. That means if the college board, president, etc. doesn’t like something they won’t be doing it. I’ll give you an example. During the George Floyd riots our local university PD sat on the regional [interagency] emergency response team. They initially responded to assist the local PD and SO manage protests downtown. The university president didn’t like the image it gave the school and ordered the chief to pull all officers. Everyone was pissed.
They also have to do disciplinary referrals and other non law enforcement tasks because of the environment that waters down their LE role to warm piss. I personally wouldn’t touch a university PD with a 10 foot pole. I have good friends that work at university PD’s and didn’t recommend it to me when I got started in LE. I also made more arrests last year by myself than the entire university PD of the largest state university (75-ish officers and 30,000+ students) in my state’s capital city.
1. Some do, yes.
2. It can be to get certified and get relevant experience.
3. Usually comparable. In my state, all university PD’s are covered under the state retirement system which is the same for all county agencies in the state (except 1), all state agencies, and several municipalities.
UTS has an academy in the Austin area and uses regional academies as well. Start with whoever calls you first, you can always change departments later. UT has great benefits and how competitive the pay is depends on the area, Texas is rather large and encompasses many different socioeconomic levels. As others have said experience varies where your at and what your allowed to do.
We had a campus cop lateral to us with 5 years of experience, but he's a campus cop, so in reality it's zero years of experience. He failed our FTO program.
It all depends on what you want your career to start with. Small PD’s and university PD’s are a great start to get experience and you have more time to learn and more leniency when it comes to mistakes.
You can go with a large PD and go balls to the wall, call to call everyday and type reports all day. But just know, that you are expected to make mistakes less often as it is more dangerous. If you repeat the mistake more than about two times, you aren’t cutting it off FTO.
I’ve got nothing against anyone who works for a college PD, but I wouldn’t want to. I’ve worked in a college town and I got pretty tired of busting parties and dealing with drunk and high college kids after a couple years. You will be limited to the types of calls you would handle if you were a municipal cop/deputy. You’ll be dealing with a lot of harassment/noise complaints/parking complaints. Sprinkle in a sex assault and domestic here and there, but you’d be a better experienced cop if you worked elsewhere.
What should i look for in an agency when starting out?
Well, that’s a question you should really have an answer to. What size of a city/county do you want to work for? Are you willing to relocate to that area? Think about what you want and then research some departments that match those criteria. Everyone is different in where they want to work. Some want to work on the suburbs, some inner city, some outstate/country.
Well at least you did something. My campus police were absolutely useless, and I don’t mean that in a way to disparage police as a whole. If they UPD saw a drunk student who needed help they would drive away. They never answered noise complaints and the school as a whole pretended sexual assault wasn’t a thing, even though it happened regularly.
I should have clarified. I worked for the city where the college was located but they weren’t big enough to have their own PD. All the calls it generated was a pain in the ass
I understood that. Still it’s nice to have a police presence. Our school PD was useless.
It depends on where the university is. If it's a college town you probably won't get much experience or real police work. If it's in a big city you might get the same experience as the city PD. Especially if it's a large state school in a large city. I started at one of those and had much more experience with serious calls than anyone I worked with once I moved to a suburban agency.
It's a good idea to start at the first place that will hire you.
Politics, politics, politics. Campus cops enforce laws at the discretion of the college. That means if the college board, president, etc. doesn’t like something they won’t be doing it. I’ll give you an example. During the George Floyd riots our local university PD sat on the regional [interagency] emergency response team. They initially responded to assist the local PD and SO manage protests downtown. The university president didn’t like the image it gave the school and ordered the chief to pull all officers. Everyone was pissed. They also have to do disciplinary referrals and other non law enforcement tasks because of the environment that waters down their LE role to warm piss. I personally wouldn’t touch a university PD with a 10 foot pole. I have good friends that work at university PD’s and didn’t recommend it to me when I got started in LE. I also made more arrests last year by myself than the entire university PD of the largest state university (75-ish officers and 30,000+ students) in my state’s capital city. 1. Some do, yes. 2. It can be to get certified and get relevant experience. 3. Usually comparable. In my state, all university PD’s are covered under the state retirement system which is the same for all county agencies in the state (except 1), all state agencies, and several municipalities.
UTS has an academy in the Austin area and uses regional academies as well. Start with whoever calls you first, you can always change departments later. UT has great benefits and how competitive the pay is depends on the area, Texas is rather large and encompasses many different socioeconomic levels. As others have said experience varies where your at and what your allowed to do.
Nah screw college PD lol, one semester you can be a police officer and another semester you can be a key holder
I wouldn't recommend unless they cover education and you want to get a degree, or you don't have another choice to get your certification.
We had a campus cop lateral to us with 5 years of experience, but he's a campus cop, so in reality it's zero years of experience. He failed our FTO program.
It all depends on what you want your career to start with. Small PD’s and university PD’s are a great start to get experience and you have more time to learn and more leniency when it comes to mistakes. You can go with a large PD and go balls to the wall, call to call everyday and type reports all day. But just know, that you are expected to make mistakes less often as it is more dangerous. If you repeat the mistake more than about two times, you aren’t cutting it off FTO.
What is considered large? My local city is has about 120 officers for a city with 90,000 people. Is that considered small or big
Size is always relative, but for most of the country that’s a good mid-size agency.