To all Police Cadets

[GCSDexplorer]

Im making a proposal for more activities for my paid cadet position at my local university. I just curious as to what type of "work" or activities you do as a police cadet. Thanks

[MPI1]

Police Cadet or Police Explorer??? They are two COMPLETELY different positions.

[trainzmainiac]

They can be similar when the cadet program is a volunteer position, but in this case it is an actual paid position so those two programs are totally different.

[GCSDexplorer]

Police Cadet, the paid position within the police department, is the one I was referring to.

[explcdt8]

A paid police cadet position can be doing almost anything short of anything legally requiring sworn officers.

I have seen it personally range from a uniformed secretary position to cadets who are armed with pepper spray and batons and respond to lower priority calls (ie. larceny from a vehicle with no witnesses).

Some questions that should be able to help you get a good idea of where to go:

What state are you in?
What is the political climate on campus like?
Are there any other non-sworn positions with the campus police?
What type of people are you hoping to attact? Those that might want to go into LE, or those that know they want to go into LE?
Are you looking for a way for cadets to have a promotion process to police officer?
How big is your campus, both population and area wide?

If you are on an uber-liberal campus that thinks that "immature kids" should have nothing to do with police work, and your campus police already has dispatchers and non-sworn security officers, I would look to start at things like clerical duties, helping with parking lot control at major events, being role-players for trainings and things like that.

If you are on a campus that treats students like adults, with a police department that is woefully understaffed, I would be looking at more field duties like traffic control, parking enforcement, responding to low-priority calls. You can look up police service assistants or community service officers for more information.

[ET109]

The 'cadets' here do booking work and parking citations. Most of them are under 21 and trying to get some experience. They also sometimes do traffic around events.

I love that we have dedicated (non-sworn) 'cadets' for these jobs. If the sworn officers had to deal with all the parking issues in the city there would be (1) much less time for real work and (2) much less revenue from tickets. I have no interest in dealing with prisoners, either, so I'm glad when they take them off my hand. And we usually get stuck with traffic details, so when someone else is doing them, all the better. Being a university, you might not have these issues... but I would think parking tickets could be something they could do. Otherwise they could maybe function as a sort of supplemental eyes and ears if its not a violent crime area.

[trainzmainiac]

The Las Vegas Metro Police Department Cadet program is a good example. Look it up on their website and youtube.

[DTims]

I'm a cadet for a city PD. Myself and my other partners were all police explorers prior to this position. My department allows us a lot more than other cadet programs in the area. First off, our entire job description can be described in this one short sentence: Support patrol staff.

Our primary responsibilities are; non-suspect reports (ie Vehicle burgs, residential burgs, frauds etc), missing persons, stolen vehicle entrys, parking enforcement, graffiti, and traffic collision investigation. We all kind of have our niches. I like to go look for stolen cars, my partner really likes collisions so its pretty nice.

If we had more cadets, they use to assign some to our jail for supplemental staffing and during light duty are assigned to records.

Hope this helps.

[GCSDexplorer]

Haven't been able to respond to the posts due to school and work but I have read them. Thanks everyone for the ideas and explanations of your duties, hopefully i will be able to submit some proposals to my Chief to extend our duties.

[Cat_Doc]

This chatter is foreign to me.

Where I come from, Explorers are young adults sponsored by law enforcement agencies to "explore" the law enforcement career field. They have absolutely no more authority than an average citizen.

Cadets are law enforcement officers going through a police academy who have not yet received the training or passed proficiency standards to receive state certification as a sworn officer. They have absolutely no more authority than an average citizen.

[Burnout1985]

Police Cadets here have NO authority and are only authorized to carry pepperspray. Out here they cannot respond to any calls nor run lights or sirens. what their job (possibly soon to be MY job too) is to transport evidence between precincts, man the front desk for walk-in complaints and to drive cruisers to the shop to be repaired. Nothing else is allowed unless we are assigned to work for Vice and assist in undercover for alcohol places and low level drug deals.

[Lawson]

There's typically 3 different kinds of cadets in WA.

1. Explorers with the title "cadet"

2. Cadets with the WSP academy. They actually can be assigned to quasi-law enforcement positions before going to trooper basic. They go through a short "arming academy" and then end up at a weigh station, governors mansion, port of entry, etc... as they try to get a spot at trooper basic. They dress and arm like the troopers, except they have small "Trooper Cadet" rocker under their WSP patch. The badge may say "cadet" too, but I've never noticed. I don't think students at the BLEA (city/county officers) academy are referred to as cadets.

3. The last one is like what you see here. It is more of a "community service officer" type position. You'll see them with support duties like transports, collisions, traffic control, parking enforcement, court runs, etc... usually they get some sort of special commission that allows them to take enforcement action short of making PC arrests.

[Sierra]

This chatter is foreign to me.

Cadets are law enforcement officers going through a police academy who have not yet received the training or passed proficiency standards to receive state certification as a sworn officer. They have absolutely no more authority than an average citizen.

Phoenix PD has (or had, not sure if they still do) the cadet position. As stated above, they were used to give the 18-21 year olds a little more exposure, but they were support staff, nothing else. I want to say Chandler had them, but I remember a different name for theirs.