But fewer risks than people make it out to be. When people publish the lists of riskiest occupations based on health data, on the job injury data, etc police officers generally wind up around #20 +/-. Meanwhile there are occupations that are much lower paid ahead of them.
Tells me we can change what police are and aren’t responsible for, and it is telling which ones they want to drop and which ones they don’t.
Here it's required to have a police detail at every road based construction site. They get paid overtime to sit there playing candy crush in case maybe something happens requiring them to direct traffic. So it seems like a win-win to replace them with citizen flaggers as it'd remove the cops from that role but also drastically lower cost to the city. But no, it'd mean taking what should be a minimum wage job and paying someone $50-100+/hr to do it.
And then the secondary debate is that some people see this as a bad thing and others see it as a good thing.
Looking there all that are riskier on deaths either have much lower education requirements, or also pay well.
Risk of death?
Risk of injury? How much injury? I've had paper cuts recorded as workplace injuries, I've also had to get stitches after bleeding profusely, are both equally recorded as risk incidents?
What about the risk of getting shot? Just the risk, will I get shot today, has a physiological impact, is that risk recorded?
What about the risk of moral injury? The potential that you're hurt in your soul, because you failed, and someone got injured or hurt?
What about the risk of infectious disease or transmission from needles, blades or bodily fluids?
Police may be a safer job than forestry from a death risk, but there are many risks for police.
I am not sure why some people seem to hate the police so much that downplaying the risks police face. I used to sell drugs and the police were my adversary, but I don't hate them as much as people who have never been arrested. It's very strange. Who do the cop haters call when thieves are breaking into their home with guns?
For one thing it doesn't happen that much in the first place. In 2024 the rate was 229.4 per 100k in the USA [1] And yet this always gets cited as some reason to keep the police around. These sorts of threats that people cite are exceedingly rare, and yet used to fuel a vision of the world that's one of requiring constantly vigilance and paranoia.
[1] https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/home-invasion-sta...
Anecdotal:
Also, my mom's house was burglarized, unknown if they had guns. After that, she got a home alarm.
My mom moved do a different part of the city, and her home was broken into at night while she was asleep. The home invaders continued as the home alarm was going off, and only stopped when a group of male neighbors started shouting at them. Presumably the criminals had weapons to conduct their home invasion.
The advice given by Toronto police is to leave your car keys out by your front door so that armed home invaders can get what they came for with ease. The police don’t show up to protect you and your property. They also don’t want to risk their own safety around armed invaders.
