The best are promoted into other positions like detective and get to work on bigger cases. Otherwise depending on how long you have been employed you will get more than someone just starting because experience is valuable.
Imagine no union. Pressure from the mayor or council or the media or a connected criminal will get you fired possibility thrown in jail.
> Otherwise depending on how long you have been employed you will get more than someone just starting because experience is valuable.
This is exactly the problem with unions. Pay for time under your belt is a stupid idea. Experience isn’t actually worth more to anyone beyond an adequate amount to do the job competently.
A police officer with 10 years of experience is not going to actually prevent more crime than one with 7 years. Additionally, an ambitious officer that takes training seriously, etc can be a much better officer than one with twice the experience.
Rewarding seniority rather than merit is literally an incentive to do the bare minimum for as long as possible.
Most police services/forces have a ceiling on that. I worked in one where there was a combination. Not in the US, but the issues are similar and we had a union.
The union absolutely could not protect sworn officers who broke the law. And if a member was in legal trouble, the local branch voted on whether to provide legal support ( good lawyers paid by the union for as long as needed). I saw an officer charged with stealing (from a found wallet) where the branch voted not to provide that support.
My advice- pay police more and expect them to behave as professionals.
As a teenager in Thailand I saw police (1990) who didn't get paid enough to live- they relied on local community giving them rice, blankets, weapons.. or they ripped off folks -mostly from outside the community. Speeding tickets for foreigners etc.
I was paid ok to do my digital forensics- but doubled then tripled my wage in 2 years of leaving- doing ~ the same stuff (what people call incident response is built into your blood after a few years of policing).
I would also argue that I was much better as a police officer after 7 years than after 2, and much better at the specialization that I choose in the police- digital forensics- after 9 years, much better... and when i left @15 years I was much, much more valuable to the service than when I joined (skilled in forensics, understood the court process, could well react to emergencies, could write policy not just follow it etc)- but my pay had gone up maybe 30%.
But I didn't go up in rank because I didn't want to manage people, so my wage mostly capped.
And if anything- that is the issue with time based seniority- you force people to stop doing what they are good at and make them managers, with predictable results. (ie poor management)
Imagine no union. Pressure from the mayor or council or the media or a connected criminal will get you fired possibility thrown in jail.