Or do they have a few of them kicking around in their underwear drawer?
I remember from my time in the military that it was not unusual to have several extra bits of extra uniform paraphanalea.
On TV they always ask a bad cop for his badge and gun, as if they are issued one and only one forever.
What if it gets broken? Lost? Is that a career ending move?
My information comes exclusively from watching NYPD Blue, but while we wait for a knowledgeable source to come along:
Cops are typically issued a single badge, but not necessarily for their entire career. Certain promotions (or, at least in New York, moving into the Detectives Bureau) mean you wear a differently styled badge. Presumably you have to hand in your old one at that time.
Apparently, for actual work on the street, you use a dummy badge, not the real one, which is kept in a safe place (like a safe deposit box). This is because if a real badge gets lost, a bad guy can use it to facilitate all sorts of crimes. Maybe this only applies to cops working in plain clothes. In an episode of Blue, newly made Det. Clark had his badge stolen, and if he hadn’t found it, it might have meant being bucked back down into uniform. Loss of a badge is a very serious issue.
Now, let’s see if I got this answer typed before someone who actually knows the deal came along.
–Cliffy
I was issued one for my shirt, one for my jacket, and one for my wallet. The one for my wallet was a bit thick, so I purchased another from our uniform supplier that thinner. That’s a total of four.
I’ve wondered the same thing about “turn in your badge”, because just about every department I can think of issues multiple badges. I think its just movie/TV lore.
Yes, multiple badges may be issued, although in some departments the officer may have to pay a small fee for each additional one after the first. As Cliffy alluded to, in many departments a rookie will be issued a silver-colored badge and will have it as long as she remains a patrol officer, but will get a gold-colored badge upon becoming a detective or being promoted to sergeant, lieutenant, captain, etc.
Interesting sidenote: the Cleveland Police Department “retires” a badge number if the officer who held it is killed in the line of duty. Bad karma, I guess.
So it would seem that both parts of “turn in your badge and gun” are symbolic, as the officer probably has a few spares of each, though there might be one official original issue badge and one official sidearm?
Kind of like how we received one full set of each type of uniforms in boot camp and were on our own from then on (and they took that first issue of uniforms out of our base pay anyway).
Jesus, they make grunts pay for UNIFORMS in the US army? Yay capitalism! When I was in the Canadian army, any time anything broke or because unusable, I’d take it to the Quartermaster and say “new one”.
I have no cite handy, but I recall reading somewhere that the NYPD retires all badge nubers with the holder; only a relative is eligible to carry it again.
[hijack]
“Grunts,” as in the Enlisted Corps get an annual allowance. Officers have to pay out of pocket for uniforms.
[/hijack]
Tripler
We now return to your regularly scheduled thread.
is there some prestige in having a low number? like i’m number one?
In my department (New York State Department of Correctional Services) you switch badges and badge numbers with a promotion. So if you stay an officer for your entire career you will keep the same badge throughout.
Lost badges are reported as missing. We report it to all prisons in the state, the state police, and to local police departments. You get charged for replacing it and the replacement will have a new number.
That’s interesting. Out here, the badge number doesn’t refer to the particular badge so much as to the officer. They get their badge numbers based on the year they were hired. So badge number 01-101 was the 101st officer hired in 2001. Badge number 77-001 has been a cop for a really long time. The ambulance service I work for gives us badge numbers in the same manner. Which is kind of funny, since we don’t actually get (or want) badges.
Soldiers are given an annual uniform allowance to reimburse their expenses. On top of that, soldiers in units with a higher OPTEMPO and training demands can easily exhange all of their worn out uniforms and boots. Soldiers in units that are less field intensive, train outside less, and overall perform tasks that do not wear on the uniforms as much can simply purchase a new uniform out of pocket and be reimbursed later.
The military offers an INTEREST FREE credit line so you can just charge your uniforms to the credit card and then pay off like 5 dollars a month until you are given your annual allowance and then just pay it off.
Also, the Army Direct Ordering system allows soldiers who are actually deployed to go online and purchase ANYTHING they need–free of charge. The unit has a certain allowed budget. But since most soldiers don’t go through the hassle of ordering much, it leaves more money left over for those who do.
A soldier can easily purchase and entire uniform, including boots and Gortex Jackets (totalling well over 300 dollars) every single month.
I used it a lot for buying new socks and T-Shirts. I now have dozens and dozens and dozens of extra tan t-shirts from my last deployment. When shirts are free and laundry is a pain in the ass… having a steady supply of new socks and Ts is great!!!
To the OP… it’s Hollywood crap. In most departments, the officer is going to have more than one gun, too. Even if the department issued him a pistol, I bet he has personal ones at home as well.
There are companies online you can purchase badges from. I am talking about actual reputable badge companies like Wellington… (or is it Blackington??)… Not these squirrely bastards selling “Bounty Hunter” and “Concealed Weapon Holder” badges.
The local police supply stores usually have stock badges to sell as well. They will require law enforcement ID to purchase, but they are their for the officers to get more as needed.
The local sheriff’s office uses the Florida standard five point deputy star. So they’re all the same for everyone. The police department’s badges have their numbers built in to them, so they are custom jobs. But, as I said, those can be ordered online easily with proper credentials.
Or… if you’re like me and watched Team America World Police way too much one summer, you can order your own World Police badge.
Without disrespect to the excellent NYPD Blue, if a cop can get by with a dummy badge then it seems to me a bad guy could successfully use one to facilitate all sorts of crimes.
so the badge would retire a week before the officer.
if we’re going on hollywood myths.
This happened last year in a small suburb just south of Cleveland, the first officer ever killed on duty in this town. They held a service last week in which they dedicated a little memorial and gave his widow and mother replica badges. So did they not give his wife his real badge because somebody might steal it and pretend to be him?
I doubt it. I’d guess either the original badge is displayed at the police station, or was buried with him.
As with just about anything, most badges are probably just ordered out of a catalog, although you do need proper credentials to order them. Their specialness is a little overstated by TV and the movies.
A relative who was in the NYPD got a recycled number upon graduation from the Academy. But maybe the policy was changed.
What’s so special about a badge? I mean literally and physically the badge, and not the authority that it represents. There are no anti-forgery features, and nothing to authenticate them. I wouldn’t know a real badge versus a fake one, and I can imagine that unless it’s a really bad fake, most civilians and cops couldn’t, either. After all, what constitutes fake, if you can just order one from a catalogue?
If I were ever in a situation where I might question the authenticity of a badge, I think I’d ask for some type of ID. Sure, there are ways to fake them as well, but I would hope that a government issued ID would have something that distinguishes it, such as a hologram, or at the very least isn’t printed on an inkjet. Photo ID and physical description are nice.
For those cops indicating “wallet badges,” maybe that’s what you really have?