As an armchair economist who believes that everything DOES happen at the margins, we can't completely ignore this, so I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to the argument.
But what really kills the argument is looking at how our medical professionals have stepped up and responded to COVID-19, putting their lives on the line every day, with utterly inadequate gear. And still they serve.
Yes, if the police are less militarized and have more personal liability/responsibility, it will reduce the level of interest in the profession somewhat, but I think we have to not kid ourselves about the degree of such an impact.
This is before we get into whether we really even want "those people" (who are attracted to the militaristic side of policing) 'serving' our communities at all.
Just as anti-pursuit policies have swept the nation to reduce officer-involved carnage, we can reduce escalation of violence.
I'm not sure that it's relevant, as the pay scale for LPNs/CNs/CNAs are all over the place... and overtime and retirement benefits can make law enforcement extremely lucrative careers. But I just don't have the numbers for it either way.
this is the key point. I have known many people that would like to have been a "police officer" in the sense that I believe many people think policing should be. After finding out it is more like the military than servicing the community they dropped the pursuit
More recently I have even seen many Former Military people shy away from going into the policing because the paramilitary tactics and procedures of modern militarized policing are in many ways MORE extreme than any rules of engagement that the military employed in their theaters of operation (i.e US Police treat citizens of this nation worse than the US Military does when we invade a nation)
Any Police Reform that does not involve MASSIVE demilitarization of the police force is a waste of time
Seems disingenuous to compare say Doctors who go through medical school vs people who only need a high school degree and however long training takes.
Looks like NYC cops make more than NYC nurses, or it's close.
From the source, starting $42K, $85K after 5 years, plus benefits:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-be...
New York nursing, average pay (> 5 years) $83K, $89K in NYC.
When you factor in years of medical school for the degree, medical malpractice insurance, and lack of benefits versus police pension, police are generally netting more.
Training and educating medical professionals is not a cheap task.
[1] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/06/in-blue-but-no...
[2] The effective nationwide minimum wage, (the wage that the average minimum wage worker earns), is $11.80 as of May 2019. So 40 hr/week * 52 weeks = $24,544 annually. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...)
In my city a 1st year officer makes about 15-20% more than the median HOUSEHOLD income for the city. (most Households are 2 income at least).
That is base income not factoring in Shift Premiums, Overtime, and various other income they earn
So I would love to know what city you are referring to where cops are being paid the minimum wage
Also, fewer surgeons and nurses get shot on the job, I assume.
The DHS funding being pumped into the forces have resulted in police being better battle-equipped than the average country's military and this has become a recruiting tool. Don't want to sign many years of your life away and probably get shipped out to a -stan where you have to deal with constant misery just to live out a military fantasy? Just go to a police academy for a couple months and you can cosplay all you want while with all the same toys in a "target rich environment".
The end result is we've created a recruiting pull that only finds the worst possible people for the job. It would be like HR only hiring people for a software company who picked computer science entirely because they heard it was high paying but somehow far far deadlier.
There are also 54 people listed as working as "[XXX] police [XXX]", in a town of 41k.
For the record, there is an average of one violent crime a day in my town, and stats like 7 projected rapes in 2020 (0 murders).
Whether or not that's all justified, I leave as an exercise to the reader.
I'm surprised to even see the argument offered, I'm very interested in hearing from someone with inside experience on this enlighten us as to how much these kinds of 'opportunities' actually affect morale.
From what I understand, assaults on health care workers is a large issue, but they are also much more numerous than law enforcement. It's hard to find exact numbers, as I really don't know the US government industry names very well, so I have no idea whether "Police protection" in IIF contains all LE and "Health care and social assistance" is the appropriate other category, but HE has slightly more deaths (138 vs 111) while employing a lot more people (16m vs <1m).
I don't even have to say anything further. It speaks for itself.
You can't compare spontaneous heroism with mundane risk.
A doctor on the other hand starts out making 70k in their residency after 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school. Once their residency is over they can expect to make well into the six figures. Probably in the 300-400k range. COVID is a few months of increased danger that happens perhaps once in a career for which some medical professionals are even getting paid extra for.
I don't necessarily think police are under paid but to say you can attract people because of the public service aspect of the job and ignore the vast pay difference seems to ignore the obvious difference.
The point isn't whether they get paid the wrong amount for the qualifications required the point is about the calculus about how much you are willing to put up with when you are getting paid $70k vs $300k.
If I'm getting paid $300k and once or twice in my 40 year career I have to deal with a pandemic my thought process about how I feel about that is different than if I'm making 70k. All I'm saying is comparing doctors to cops doesn't seem particularly useful.
Is it? I hear ads on the radio for Portland Police in my state (which is not Oregon) and it says pay starts at $74,000/year plus a long list of benefits.
Is $35/hour the minimum page in Portland now?
This is exactly an American hero obsession that is causing police problem. Everyone here : police, fire department, medical staff and so on have to be heroes.
From where I come, all doctors, lawyers, police or any other service provides are identified at best working for a pay or more commonly out there to rip off common people at first chance they get.
My US experience of doctors is not much better considering how much private, non-insurance covered treatment they "recommended" for my kid. It feels highly unlikely that they had my best interest at their heart.
I assume you are implying an Israeli cannot be a good police trainer because they occupy Palestine, but I disagree.
On the other hand, people who want to harm others, have a higher chance of joining the police force. (Not all police officers, but some.)
It seems obvious to me that as we work toward decarceration and decriminalization there will be a need for fewer police officers.
Practically everyone agrees that racial profiling should go away. Well, that's less "work" and should lead to fewer staff. Pretty similar public sentiment toward drug possession.
Not quite cops, but related. If we got rid of cash bail we'd need smaller prisons and fewer corrections officers. People who are released without bail overwhelmingly return for their court dates. So the only reason they are in jail is because they couldn't afford bail--they haven't been convicted of a crime. And that bail is then used to coerce confessions out of people.
On a given night, about 470k people are in jail because they couldn't make bail. That's about 25% of incarcerated people.
They get paid a reasonable salary to be trained in a job that will provide them a nice income for the rest of their life. Having a lower salary while in training is not unheard of in any field, I am not sure why you believe those numbers are unacceptable.
Further Baltimore shows why a national $15 min wage is untenable, as all that does is make more jobs "minimum wage jobs" because taking the min wage from $8 to $15 does not magically mean all the jobs that paid $15 now pay $22, that is not how economics work
Exactly, this means they are training police in MILITARY tactics, the entire point of this conversation was that the police need to be DEMILITARIZED, having them trained by the IDF is exact what we SHOULD NOT be doing
It's mostly not the $300K year MDs just like it's mostly not the $300K police captains. That's "the 1%" (figuratively).
The front lines for riots are the $35K - $85K cops and the front lines for COVID are the $35K - $85K year nurses.
I would think it would change the TYPE of person interested in such a job. I wouldn't be interested in a job where I'm just beating people up but I would be interested in a job helping people.