Do cops get paid all the hours they work?

On Law and Order Svu, the dectetives seem to work pretty much 24/7, like over 100 hours per week. In real life, would the dectetives get paid all this (and therefore be making almost 3 times their normal salary, 300,000$ per year)?

Cops earn lots and lots of overtime. It’s one of the perks of the job, along with the retirement benefits.

100 hours a week is obviously a bit much, but I think 50-60 is quite common.

In some places (most, probably) police officers earn a lot of overtime.

Here’s astudy for Seattle Police

Here’s an articleabout Austin, Tx

For even the top earners, however, it looks like it doesn’t hit $300,000

. . . and in some cities they don’t even need to work those hours to get paid for them. . .

Aren’t cops always “on duty” in a certain sense? If they’re out to dinner with their wife and then a fight breaks out and they step in to control the situation, do they bill the city for that time? How does that part of the job work?

Here in the UK too, but their basic looks a lot less than a US city cop:

At some level in the hierarchy they would be salaried and not eligible for overtime, correct?

Cops are only going to get paid overtime for when something unusual happens and it expands out of their shift–the vast bulk of their time they are doing very routine things.

Also remember that shifts for detectives may not be as rigid as they are for uniformed officers. It’s entirely possible that detectives can/are expected to adjust their working hours according to the needs of the case.

It may be worth noting that many employers design their business model around overtime work to avoid hiring more people because in some circumstances it is cheaper.

This is especially true in occupations where costs for employees (such as benefits, insurance, etc.) are a major part of the expense. and police work is on of those.

In the UK, ranks above sergeant are salaried and get no overtime. This means that a sergeant may well be earning more (a lot more in some cases) than his boss. A major disincentive to promotion.

In my city, they not only get overtime, but the union has also won them the right to freelance for private organizations for things like directing traffic in and out of the parking lot during busy times, which they do in uniform and with full police powers. But often the job is simply to ensure that there are no significant traffic problems, so they actually spend much of that time standing around on the sidewalk chatting and enjoying free coffee or whatever else the store provides. With the possible exception of actors in TV ads, it’s probably a world record for rate of pay for drinking free coffee! :smiley:

Around here, cops get overtime if they work over 40 hours a week. Once they gain seniority, they can volunteer for as much overtime as they want. Often they will lose up on overtime in the years before retirement, since that’s based on how much they made in their last three years. The unions won’t give that up, especially since they control the Conservative Party in the county: politicians won’t cross them since they need their endorsement.

So cops work overtime all the time.

OP specifically mentioned Lawn Order SVU detectives . . . Be interesting to hear from Loach on that. He’s one of those, isn’t he?

So it happens in the U.S. Now to see if it happens in Australia…

Sometimes they don’t get actually paid for overtime, but get ‘Comp time’ (Compensatory time off) which is extra hours they can take off when they want. With the schedule approval of their supervisor. But often police departments are so busy that it’s hard for officers to use up this comp time. So many departments allow them to accumulate it, often over years. Sometimes that builds up until they retire, then they many have months-worth of accumulated comp time they can use up then. So they get paid past retirement, or use this to effectively retire early.

This is one of the many B.S. things that TV police shows perpetrate; that’s cops work zillions of hours in overtime, have no vacation/sick leave, are always broke/in debt, etc…

In real life the municipalities hover close regarding overtime and even for special services it’s restricted. If officers of any rank are routinely putting in for more than 20 hours per week OT there is eventually going to be an audit to determine if someone is gaming the system or if more staff needs to be added.

When I retired from full time in 2007 I was a detective in the compliance sector of vice. I could have gamed 80 extra hours a week with plenty of reason but OT was watched over like crazy and one couldn’t get away with it.

There are times when there is a lot of overtime for everyone. Overtime for special events like parades and fairs and such are always included in budgets. But some things are not. When the Vietnam vets who became police officers retired en mass there were tons of openings and a lot of hours to make up. It sucked. I was in the patrol sector at the time and worked a lot of double shifts and lost a lot of scheduled off days. This went on for almost 2 years! :mad:

That is just incompetence on the part of your department management – the likely retirement dates of those officers was pretty predictable, based on their ages & hiring dates. So they should have participated in the suckage: all the former patrol officers now promoted to management shuld have been required to take OT shifts on patrol to help cover the shortage. Not very likely that happened, though!

I could go on and on about incompetence but:

This is false. There were a couple of tiers of retirement at the time. A lot of Deps left suddenly and took the first tier (one could retire same day if one wanted to and was qualified for it) and some stayed even past the 2nd tier. There had been no way of knowing that a huge flock would bail within that year.

It takes 6months-1 year to get the budget approval to hire, and then 6-months-1 year to interview and train new recruits. Just because a Deputy leaves and is no longer being paid does not mean the Sheriff can automatically replace him. The county board still has some say in it. (I’m referring to here, YMMV depending on location. Civil service rules do differ).

I myself retired at 25 years instead of 30 and I gave very little notice. Filed the papers and hit the bricks.