Nope I'm taking issue with this maybe in large cities NYC, Chicago, LA they do, but remember most cops aren't in those cities the majority of them are paid for by small municipal budgets and aren't having hours and hours of OT to bill. Remember the vast majority of cops in the US aren't generally violent aren't working in huge cities with thousands of people and may only have a couple dozen people on their force.
My neighbor is a cop (sergeant) in a midwest town of roughly 300K people. His base salary is $95k, and last year he earned $40k in overtime. He's been with the PD for roughly 22 years. Police start at $56k. There academy training is paid for by the city.
In contrast, teachers start out at $46k, and are required to have a BA, plus teaching credential that they pay for themselves. The maximum a teacher can earn in the city is capped at $88K, and that requires a PhD plus 24 years of experience.
If teachers got paid overtime, they'd be the highest paid employees in the nation.
Hi, my hometown is in the Midwest and has about 70k residents. The police department budget is two-thirds the general fund and increases about six percent year over year, for the last five years.
This year they added some building code enforcement officers to evict poor people; 95k/year plus benefits.
I think these small town cops are doing just fine with their community college associates' degree in "criminal justice".
