Interdepartment/interstate career moves as an officer

[StartingOut]

How easy or hard is it for a police officer to transfer from one city to another, or from one state to another? Are lateral moves for experienced officers difficult, and do they often involve taking a huge step backwards in terms of career progression?

Thanks!

[Kimble]

Unless you're way up in the food chain (chief/sheriff, assistant/deputy chief, etc.), you don't leave one department and start off where you left off at a new one. If you're the Sgt with the most seniority with Department A, and you apply to Department B, you start off as the least senior patrolman at Department B. Granted, your experience will make things easier for you adjusting to the new job, but you don't skip ahead of the line.

Also, not all departments give lateral transfers, so often you have to apply and go through the same hiring steps as all other applicants. Some agencies don't even recognize the police academy training of other departments/states, so you may have to go through basic academy again.

Moral of the story, if you plan to get hired on with one department only to leave and go elsewhere later on, you probably should do your homework to find out what it will entail before you do it.

[StartingOut]

That sounds kinda crappy, to be honest. I know where I'll be for the next ten years, but after that, I can't tell where I'll end up. Chances are, it'll be where I am now, but I'd also like to live elsewhere in the US for a while.

It'd be a killer to have to move from somewhere where I was perhaps a sergeant or detective earning (for the sake of argument) $70,000, and end up having to take a job as a patrol officer earning half that amount if I want to remain in law enforcement.

It's a shame there's not more nationwide coordination between police departments. I would have thought it would be highly beneficial for cops to be able to move more freely - better retention of qualified officers, more diverse experiences/skills being brought to the table, more opportunities to train etc.

I guess the only way to avoid this problem is to shoot for an 1811 position.

[Kimble]

Police agencies' top priority is policing their respective communities, not making it easier for their officers to leave for "greener pastures." Like any job, if you don't like a department, you can leave to one that better fits you, but agencies are under no obligation to make it easier for you when they have plenty of employees already working for them who should be their top priority.

StartingOut, it's obvious you have very niave expectations of what law enforcement is, which is okay for someone who's never worked in this field. I suggest you do some internships and ride-alongs, as it's clear from your posts you have a LOT to learn about this field if you want to work in it. It's all too common for people who have never worked in LE to want to tell us how we should do business, but I doubt real seriously that you have a firm grasp on what budgets for agencies are allocated to, how that impacts individual divisions within the agency, and pushes agency priorities. For example, in major metropolitan areas, gangs are a severe problem. Dealing with them is probably of much more importance to the officers on the streets than ensuring that some other officer from another department maintains his current seniority and pay grade when he gets hired on. If you want to join an agency, you need to accept whatever sacrifices come with it, or just stay where you're at and make the best of it.

I guess the only way to avoid this problem is to shoot for an 1811 position.

If you think you can be hired on with one 1811 agency and not lose seniority (or even you GS pay grade) when you apply to another, guess again. Many times they hiring agency will try (note I said "try", not "guarantee") to match your pay, but you will still likely be hired at a lower GS level, and you will start seniority over as well.

If you expect to walk into law enforcement and have the world handed to you on a silver platter, guess again.

[Roger Dat]

If you leave a department to come to mine for example you start at the bottom of the chain pay scale wise and rank. Not only that but for example we require 5 years before you can test for supervisor. That is not 5 years of law enforcement but 5 years with my agency so keep that in mind. Not all the departnments are the same but moves to othr PD's are usually better toward the beginning of your career.

[StartingOut]

Edited.

[StartingOut]

Police agencies' top priority is policing their respective communities, not making it easier for their officers to leave for "greener pastures." Like any job, if you don't like a department, you can leave to one that better fits you, but agencies are under no obligation to make it easier for you when they have plenty of employees already working for them who should be their top priority.

Good to know. It just strikes me as very odd indeed that a locale with an up-and-coming gang or drug problem wouldn't want to give some seniority to a new hire from an urban department with a decade of gang/narcotics experience. Sure, each department has a duty to look after its own employees, but at the expense of effective policing and acquiring much-needed experience that would greatly enhance its policing abilities? Sorry, but as an outsider, that makes police departments sound like officer welfare systems for current employees.

The same goes for an urban department that wants to develop better community relations, but doesn't want to bother making working for the department an attractive opportunity for a suburban or rural cop with years of community policing experience.

I can understand that low-level patrol officers are easily replaceable and no big loss for any department, but after acquiring specialized (and expensive-to-develop) policing skills, it seems very short-sighted for any department to insist that such a skilled officer pays his dues again (and loses his specialized skills in the meantime) just to keep a handful of existing employees happy.

And speaking of budget concerns, there's not one industry or instance I can think of where it's more cost-effective or time-effective to develop a skill in-house rather than hire an experienced person who has already developed those skills on someone else's dime, particularly where that particular company or department doesn't currently have the ability or expertise to develop those skills in-house. For example, if I wanted to hire a computer programmer, I'd pay $50,000 to bring in someone who is experienced and who can hit the ground running, rather than pay a junior employee $30,000 per year for three years to slowly bring him or her up to speed. Sure, the latter would make for a one happier employee, but the former would be the best way to add skills to the company.

No disrespect to officers who have actual experience, but what am I missing? I'm not expecting everything to be handed to me on a silver platter, nor am I expecting to hop from department to department. I'm just suggesting - as one might reasonably suggest - that having an experienced officer start from square one each time he or she moved location is the quickest way to ensure that experienced cops simply bleed from system and move into careers that value and credit such skills every time life requires that they transfer to another locale.

[StartingOut]

If you leave a department to come to mine for example you start at the bottom of the chain pay scale wise and rank. Not only that but for example we require 5 years before you can test for supervisor. That is not 5 years of law enforcement but 5 years with my agency so keep that in mind. Not all the departnments are the same but moves to othr PD's are usually better toward the beginning of your career.

Interesting. Thanks.

One PD in my area has brought the last few chiefs in from other departments out of state. They are also actively recruiting lieutenants. Does having experience as a more senior supervisor make it easier to transfer from department to department and stay in a supervisory position, or is it still a complete pain in the butt to move departments at any career stage?

[Roger Dat]

You cannont transfer into most departments that I know of with any rank. The only exception I have seen is chiefs can be hired from outside.

[StartingOut]

Time for me to put down some serious roots then, I guess!

Thanks for the info, guys.

[Trollx561]

a guy in my department was just a road patrol officer and left to go to another agency in another county and was hired as a SGT. So it can happen.

[Kimble]

I can understand that low-level patrol officers are easily replaceable and no big loss for any department, but after acquiring specialized (and expensive-to-develop) policing skills, it seems very short-sighted for any department to insist that such a skilled officer pays his dues again (and loses his specialized skills in the meantime) just to keep a handful of existing employees happy.

You seem to have a less-than-favorable view of officers working in patrol. At the very least, patrol officers are the ground troops and backbone of law enforcement. They're the first responders who come when you call 9-1-1, not detectives, not police chiefs, not 1811's. Saying that a patrol officer is "replacable and no big loss for any department" is a real slap in the face to a lot of honorable men and women in uniform, and that's a real poor attitude you have about LE if that's how you feel about patrol officers.

Someone who has worked in a specialized unit would likely have no trouble getting back into a specialized unit after making it through FTO (they need to learn the streets they're working in, regardless of what work they did on the streets of another area) and probation. However, if they decide they want to stay in patrol, they can (patrol is a lot more fun and has less stress that follows from one day to another than investigations). Specialized skills are great, but if you don't know how to get and 4th Street and 8th Ave to follow up on a lead, you're not much good as a detective for a given department.

[DeltaV]

Aside from upper level administrators, the only way that you will be able to leave one department as say a sergeant or detective and take the same position at another agency is if the agency is extremely small and has no qualified candidates internally for the position. I work at a very large agency, and we never hire anyone at a rank other than officer. You can start up a few steps higher on the salary scale, but that's it. And yes, we frequently get transfers from other agencies. Some of these people held a specialized position or rank at their old agency, but they still start off at the bottom here.

One of the reasons for this is that law enforcement (in many places) is highly unionized. Union rules would prohibit new people from coming in and jumping ahead of more senior officers who have paid their dues at the agency. Even if a department isn't unionized, they still will probably hire under a civil service system. Most civil service systems do not allow those currently outside the agency to apply for any sort of promotional position.

Again, this isn't the case for upper level administrators, but that's because in order to be a chief most agencies want a person who has been a chief somewhere else. It's not like you're going to be able to jump from sergeant at one department to chief at another agency.

[StartingOut]

Seriously, ROS, what has gotten under your skin so bad in this thread?

First, I asked a sensible question about transfers. It was answered with a sensible answer, stating that officers who transfer will end up being treated as new recruits. Fair enough.

I then made the comment that to me, that sounded like an odd policy - there seems to be no obvious reason for one department not valuing a lateral transfer's experience. To which you jumped all over me, claiming that I was naive, that I had a lot to learn (which, incidentally, is why I use this site), that I was telling cops how to run their departments, that I have no grasp of budgetary concerns, that I should suck it up, that a federal position wouldn't be any easier to transfer with, and that I was expecting everything to be handed to me on a silver platter. Wow. You sure read a bunch into my post.

Then I responded that still didn't quite understand the policy behind not actively recruiting qualified, experienced officers. Yes, this post mentioned that low-level patrol officers are easily replaceable and no big loss to a department. That's not a disrepectful comment whatsoever, and was directed at the department, not the individuals - it's a fair conclusion I drew from this site. You'll note that this site contains countless posts about the sheer numbers of willing police recruits and how police departments have no need to go out of their way to hire, give concession to or retain anyone because they can just pick up another recruit from the never-ending pile, and countless posts from officers who simply tell anyone with even the most minor criticism of a department that they can leave because there's plenty more recruits that would gladly fill that person's place. So yes, as far as the departments are concerned from a human resources standpoint, individual low-level patrol officers (i.e. those only a year or two out of the academy) are easily replaceable. The loss of one such officer - from a department's standpoint - probably isn't a great loss. There's plenty more to choose from. I never mentioned that a patrol officer's job is not vitally important though.

You responded to this post with a venomous, rather ridiculous claim that I clearly have a less-than-favorable view of patrol officers, that I was slapping officers in the face, and that I had a poor attitude towards law enforcement in general. Again, wow. Either your reading comprehension skills are awful, you're deliberately misreading, or you're simply looking for a negative reaction from me by putting words into my mouth.

You're correct. I clearly hate cops. That's exactly why I'm so interested in finding out more about the profession and almost at the point of applying and taking a six figure pay cut to join. What a great, insightful, and accurate conclusion. :rolleyes:

Yes, you're working in law enforcement and I'm not. As such, I value your insight - most of the time - since it's typically very useful, but your responses in this thread seem to be overly aggressive, antagonistic and, in some cases, utterly bizarre and kinda crazy. Nobody else has picked up on the non-existent hatred and disrespect towards the profession and police officers that you somehow believe I'm displaying.

[StartingOut]

One of the reasons for this is that law enforcement (in many places) is highly unionized. Union rules would prohibit new people from coming in and jumping ahead of more senior officers who have paid their dues at the agency. Even if a department isn't unionized, they still will probably hire under a civil service system. Most civil service systems do not allow those currently outside the agency to apply for any sort of promotional position.

Thank you! That actually explains everything, and makes perfect sense to me. That's exactly what I was looking for - a simple, clear answer.