By Police1 Staff
Can you guess which U.S. city has the most full-time officers per 10,000 residents? Okay, #1 is probably easy, it’s Washington D.C. But how about 2nd and 3rd? According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Data from 2012, D.C. has 61.2 officers per 10k residents, followed by Baltimore with 47.4 officers and Chicago with 44.1.
Data compiled by Governing.com indicates that Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama have had the highest total police deaths in a five year period (from 2008-2012) with 38, 21, and 19 officer fatalities, respectively. *This includes state and local law enforcement and correctional officers.
The states with the highest average pay for police are New Jersey, California, Washington D.C., and Illinois, in that order, and some of the lowest on average include Mississippi, Louisiana, and West Virginia.
The point is that there are countless factors that go into deciding what are some of the best states to police in. So when we asked our Police1 Facebook fans to take a vote, the myriad responses and reasons were no surprise. Take a look:
1. Which of the 50 U.S. states (not including the one in which you currently live) would you most like to work in as a law enforcement professional?
Based on the results, it’s clear that weather was one of the biggest deciding factors. Top ranking states were Texas, Florida, California, and Hawaii, in that order. The states with the least votes all tied at 0.15%: Misssissippi, Delaware, Nebraska, and Illinois.
When asked why each particpant chose their state (in an open-ended question), most answers included being near family, having more sun, more outdoor opportunities for off-duty time, and the most common answer was it was their place of birth.
2. If you decided to relocate yourself and your family for a better job opportunity in law enforcement, which of the following factors would most sway your decision?
Salary and job title was the biggest reason anyone would move — which isn’t surprising, but what is a surprise is that weather made up only 10% of the answers, despite reasoning on the previous question.
Lastly, we asked how many agencies you’ve worked for, to get a feel for just how much moving around officers are doing, on average.
3. How many different agencies have you worked for in your LE career?
Of course, any small town cop can tell you, you can easily work for four different agencies without relocating, just the same as you can move multiple times while working for one agency.
