National Police Week starts in a few days and a report has found the Best & Worst States to Be a Police Officer. Texas was found to be all over the list.
Life & Work for Cops in Texas (1=Best; 25=Avg.)
- 4th – Law-Enforcement Officers per Capita
- 8th – Median Income for Law-Enforcement Officers (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
- 15th – % of Homicide Cases Solved
- 29th – Police Deaths per 1,000 Officers
- 33rd – State & Local Police-Protection Expenses per Capita
- 35th – Violent-Crime Rate
- 39th – Median Income Growth for Law-Enforcement Officers
Note: “Law-enforcement officers” includes police and sheriff’s patrol officers, detectives and criminal investigators.
Police officers are always in the public eye whether they've done something good or bad, but they take a lot of risks.
WalletHub's Jill Gonzalez said job hazards could be less and protection could be better.
"Having a law requiring officers to be trained to respond to mental health, substance use and behavioral disorders, de-escalation training that teaches officers to slow down, create space, use communication techniques," said Gonzalez. "Using some of these different training techniques that other states doing really well here like New York, like Maryland, like California have implemented, I think, could really save lives on both sides of the line."
She said if Texas implemented more of those things it would save more civilian and officers’ lives.
Law enforcement agencies need to offer enough incentives to attract the right person.
She said law enforcement starts out making decent pay, but income growth is lacking.