In Oakland, California, the housing authority is looking for<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?k=Job&c=qjX9Vfw4&j=ogBIXfwg&s=Indeed>officers who can patrol its properties and “perform all the duties of a police officer,” including “drug elimination” and the serving of “evictions and other legal notices.” Applicants with experience in “the safe utilization of firearms” are encouraged to apply.
In Miramar, Florida, the local police are likewise searching for<http://www.ci.miramar.fl.us/hr/positions/RsvPdPolicy.pdf>“reserve officers” to perform “the same uniform patrol duties as a full-time officer.” Like their full-time colleagues, these part-time cops will have “the same law enforcement power of arrest.”
In Wichita, Kansas, they are looking for<http://agency.governmentjobs.com/wichita/default.cfm?action=viewJob&jobID=771750>someone to not only make arrests, but to take prisoners to jail as well as conduct “specialized investigations and raids.” The position “involves an element of personal danger,” so applications should have the “ability to accurately and effectively discharge a rifle, shotgun, and handgun with both left and right hands” and should also be able “to react quickly and calmly in emergencies; to record details about names, faces, and incidents quickly, clearly, and accurately.”
All these jobs are dangerous and involve carrying a deadly weapon. They entail giving a human being the power to detain another human being, and the benefit of the doubt if they should shoot one. And all the positions are unpaid.
In some cases, these unpaid officers are true volunteers: retired cops with some extra time on their hands. But half of police reserves, as these positions are called, are filled by people under 40 years old, and a quarter are under 30, according to a study reported in<http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=2214&issue_id=102010> *Police Chief *magazine. So why would they work for free?
“People are looking to join the police department, and given our hiring freeze right now, they can’t,” Jose Hernandez, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told the *Las Vegas Review-Journal*<http://www.reviewjournal.com/view/reserve-police-prepare-unpaid-patrols>when the department launched a reserve police officer program last March. In essence, these are unpaid interns who are expected to fetch perps, not coffee. Though the officers receive much the same training as their paid colleagues, Hernandez told the paper that, because they only work two shifts a month, they don't have the same experience and thus are limited to patrolling with a full-time partner.
That's not always the case in other jurisdictions. In Valley Mills, Texas<http://tml.associationcareernetwork.com/JobSeeker/JobDetail.aspx?abbr=TML&jobid=669fe9e8-4459-490e-95e1-32e0ed04699c&stats=y>, unpaid reserve officers are expected to be in patrol cars alone. In Whitney, Texas<http://tml.associationcareernetwork.com/JobSeeker/JobDetail.aspx?abbr=TML&jobid=0d88fd92-3326-4155-9206-2f910a99a3d1&stats=y>, “Non-Paid Police Officer” is a full-time job, and those officers “shall be expected to complete the same duties as full-time officers.”
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-- Andy "It's a testament to ketchup that there can be no confusion."