Editor's note: The video above first aired on March 2, 2023.
Law enforcement is a demanding career, filled with potential for danger and job stress. But along with those challenges comes a solid income and satisfaction that comes from serving the public, and making one's community a better place to live.
With National Police Week kicking off May 12, personal finance website WalletHub decided to compare the 50 states in terms of where it is best to serve as a law enforcement officer. The research includes police, sheriff's deputies, state troopers, detectives and criminal investigators. The study compared states in 30 key metrics from median pay and spending on law enforcement to violent crime rates and officer deaths.
Minnesota finished as the 8th-best state to work as a law enforcement professional. Here are some of the categories that led to that ranking.
Overall Rank: 8th
- 14th – Median Income for Law-Enforcement Officers (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
- 18th – Violent-Crime Rate
- 5th – % of Homicide Cases Solved
- 11th – State & Local Police-Protection Expenses per Capita
- 18th – Police Deaths per 1,000 Officers
The top five states to work as a law enforcement officer, according to WalletHub's research, are California, Illinois, Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Colorado. The worst, according to the analytics, are West Virginia, Arkansas, Nevada and Hawaii, with Alaska coming in squarely at the bottom.
WalletHub says there are currently more than 800,000 law enforcement officers nationwide, but departments - including those in Minnesota - are in desperate need of adding more, and competition among departments is fierce. Money is one way to recruit - the mean annual salary for an officer is $69,160 - and benefits packages can include retirement matches, tuition assistance, generous leave time and a take-home vehicle.
“Some states make protecting and serving the public in a law enforcement career more appealing than others," writes WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe. "The best states for police officers offer competitive compensation, supplemented by solid training that helps minimize the chances of deadly violence between officers and civilians. State-level policies like ‘red flag laws’ or ‘Blue Alerts’ also contribute to a better environment for police.”
One of WalletHub's expert panel on this study is Carl Lafata, former associate law enforcement professor at Minnesota State University at Mankato.
For more on the results and methodology of the study, check out the full report on WalletHub's website.
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