PD vs. Sheriff job differences

[retired]

Duly noted. Glad to hear the LASD getting their numbers up because they've been trying for a long time and I heard their academies lately have been held up forever due to budget.

IIRC, Ron (Ron-solo) a friend of mine, said in an earlier thread they were running 2 classes at the main academy in Whittier and either going to have one at the West end of the county or had already begun it. They are trying to higher a large number (1300 or sounds like the number I recall) in the next year or two.

That will help the jail deputies who have been there for a interminably long time, to finally get to patrol. That should be a good morale booster as I know some members tend to go to other depts. due to the long stay in the jails.

[BoulderTroll]

Sheriff = Dirty boots

PD = Clean boots

There is a lot of truth to this.

I'd say as a general rule, with an SO you have to be able to talk to people a bit better. When you're in a city and it goes to crap you can very quickly have a dogpile of fellow cops. On the other hand, when your closest cover unit is a 1/2 hour code-3 run away, you really learn the gift of gab. Your mouth becomes your most effective weapon and you learn to talk down situations that may have resulted in fights had you lacked some communication skills. Because of this we often have people tell us that deputies have more respect than police officers among people who are not always cop friendly.

I don't mean to make it sound like deputies rock and city cops are bullies that only like to fight. Far from it. I'm just saying that this feedback about deputies being more respectful towards people on the street comes often enough that there may be some small ring of truth to it (generalizations, of course).

As a side note about the jail topic. Many SO's don't have deputies working the jails, they have a separate class of officers (corrections officers) that perform that function. In our department when you are hired as a deputy you go straight to the street for a few years and then every so often rotate through court security as a bailiff for a year.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to both types of job (PD and SO). For instance I'd love to work motors, but motors are typically a traffic enforcement function and my department doesn't do traffic, so I'll never have that opportunity. But on the flip side, I absolutely love SAR, and that is a position available with an SO that PD's don't have.

The best thing to do is analyze what type of work you think you'd enjoy, and then see if the agency offers it. Also check about moral (this can be tough, but a ride-a-long might be the best way to do it). For example, during the years I've worked for my SO, we've had well over 10 people lateral over from PD's in our county (probably a lot more, these are just off the top of my head), and in the same time period not one of our folks has left to work for a PD in our county. And our pay is not the highest. That speaks volumes about moral.