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Comment by patrickgzill | Hacker News Reader

True, however EMTs get paid less and see similar things, as do volunteer firemen earning $0 in my part of Pennsylvania.

FWIW in most areas police are statistically less likely to die a violent death than the populace at large.

To be fair, police have to deal with a wider range of psychological issues than jobs in rescue. Not only are police exposed to most things that rescue jobs are exposed to, they also have to deal with domestic violence, hostage situations, exploitation of minors and other disadvantaged groups, threats from organized crime, and sometimes actually pulling the trigger themselves. Hell, just the fact that police officers have to enforce laws they might not personally agree with is a pretty big emotional strain. My naive intuition is that rescue jobs are far less in a grey area emotionally.

I'm not saying this to quibble about whose job is more important or serious. It's just that I would volunteer as a firefighter or an EMT in a second, but I would have to think very carefully about how working in law enforcement would affect me.

>police have to deal with a wider range of psychological issues

Not nearly as much as those serving in the military whose salary is vastly less (closer to the population median income).

True, but is that a problem with police salaries, or with military ones? I have a number of acquaintances in the military, many of whom have served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a taxpayer and (putative) beneficiary of their service, I'm personally embarrassed by how little they get paid.

They get the population median income. Without having to have acquired any skills before joining, all training and living costs are paid for after enlistement. Base pay is still far higher than minimum wage work. I'd say the problem in this specific context is undeniably CHP salaries being artificially super inflated above the national median income in a market inefficient manner that does not reflect supply of people capable of performing the work.

  > FWIW in most areas police are statistically less
  > likely to die a violent death than the populace at large.

[Citation Needed]

Here is one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_officer#Occupational_haz...

quote: "Despite perceived dangers, policing has never been listed among the top ten most dangerous jobs in America. In terms of deaths per capita, driver-sales work such as pizza delivery is a more dangerous profession than being a police officer." (see reference in footnote)

Edit: I did say "less than the populace at large" ; will try to find a specific link to back this up, not just one that shows being a police officer is not as dangerous as other jobs.

I think the difference is that, unlike EMTs and firemen, police officers need to be difficult to corrupt.

If NJ is any indication, higher salaries do nothing to prevent police corruption.

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