Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

In about 5 months the local PD will be allowing applications for sponsorship through the academy. I'm going to apply and keep my fingers and toes crossed but because I won't have my AA degree quite by the, I think I'm just going to end up with cramped hands and toes.
If I don't get accepted for the sponsorship I was thinking about applying as a service officer until I have the money saved up for the academy.
My question is, when I talk to some local officers about the service officers at their PD, most of the officers don't seem to be a fan of most of them and complain that they rarely do anything and are lazy. That wont be me but I'm concerned that if I get hired as a service officer that maybe it will actually hurt my chances of getting hired later on?

What is your experience with your local service officers?

I've never heard of a "service officer," what do they do?

We didn't have them, but a town I used to live in did. They handled light weight stuff like barking dogs, illegal dumping, things like that. I have no personal experience with them, all I know is what I read about them in some literature. I used to see them driving around in little pickups with "Community Service Officer" on the side. It might be something different where you are though.

I've never heard of a "service officer," what do they do?

From what I understand, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, they answer complaints via phone, they answer complaints in the lobby that don't necessarily need an officer present. And like retdetsgt said, they do a lot of not so important but has to be taken care of, kinda work so that patrol officers can continue to handle more important calls.

BUT it is a paid position and locally they make about half of what the patrol officers start off with. Thats about 13k more than I'm making now (if thats not sad HAHA)

If it's more money and gives you a little more experience, what would be the downside?

It just seems that the officers that come in contact with them don't have much of an opinion of them. I guess I'm kind of worried that being hired as a service officer will actually hurt my chances of hire because of the seemingly over all opinion of them.

It won't hurt your chances. Unless you end up being a lazy one.

It's the command that will be hiring you, not the individual officers and apparently the command likes having them. People are generally judged on how good a job they do within an organization, not what their job is.