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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the rest but underpaid, no. For the Oakland Police Department, where I live, the starting salary is $69,912 to $98,088. Retirement starts at 50. This job requires a GED.

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Don't forget overtime pay.

And pension.

Whatever. Also don't forget, then, the cost of living in the Bay Area (astronomical) and the difficulties of policing in Oakland (formidable).

Pension is something we should all expect. Not resent.

Pension is something we should all expect at 50? Really?

If you want to go work a few decades as an Oakland cop? Yes. That's my opinion. You are welcome to yours, sir.

Many people have difficult jobs in Oakland. Not all of them have lobbying power or unions to extract higher than market pay.

There is no universal concept of "market pay" which applies across occupations; only within a given occupation. The Oakland police are the only police available to examine in this particular "market"; there is therefore no basis for an argument about "market pay" in this context.

Compared to newly-minted coders getting low 6 figures? Well... The world would be a better place if cops and teachers were trained, paid, and respected like doctors. Police officers' jobs are mostly boredom (e.g. manning a radar gun) mixed with occasional stress and quite a bit of dealing with people in their worst moments (e.g. desperate, angry, drunk, or high). If they were paid more, the job might attract enough candidates to hire more people with the intelligence to de-escalate situations, and fewer who get off on the power.

Police officers in Suffolk County New York get $250K-$350k/year compensation packages.

The former Suffolk County Police Chief is currently in federal prison for attacking a handcuffed citizen. [1]

Sorry, but paying Police Officers as if they were SAP consultants does not improve the quality of their policing.

Oh, and if you're wondering, why didn't the District Attorney protect citizens from the police? Well, he is under federal indictment for covering up police crimes. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/nyregion/james-burke-ex-s...

[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Suffolk-County-Distric...

> I agree with the rest but underpaid, no. For the Oakland Police Department, where I live, the starting salary is $69,912 to $98,088. Retirement starts at 50.

For a job dealing with crime reports and disputes all day and one of the routine job hazards is being shot dead at any moment, that's hardly a particularly attractive deal. Hell, I doubt there's very many people on HN would take that job for twice the pay.

132 police died while on duty in 2016. There are 750,000 police officers in the US.

So? In 2015, there were 51,548 assaults against law enforcement officers, resulting in 14,453 injuries.

This is a misleading point. Assaulting an officer ranges from an elbow to the rib during an arrest to beating the crap out of them.

We have roughly 900,000 police officers. A total of 135 police officers were killed in duty in 2016.[0] And 14,453 injuries. We point these people towards danger daily and in a single year only 1 in every 62 of those officers will be 'injured'. I would say that's an acceptable risk for the job if the alternative is the circumvention of due process.

[0] - http://time.com/4619689/police-officers-killed-2016/

Yes, and postal workers had 32,213 injuries in 2012 with only 630,000 workers.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/660/658174.pdf

Weak logic there. The injuries listed were from assaults; if accidental injuries were added, the number for police would undoubtedly be even higher.

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