What are the positions in a municipal police department?

Answer 1

Law enforcement agencies have two types of employees: sworn (sometimes called "commissioned") and non-sworn. Sworn employees have badges, guns and police powers. Non-sworn employees, such as telecommunications operators, clerks, technicians, executive assistants and others perform non-enforcement duties.

Sworn employees usually hold ranks modeled on a military structure. The number, title, and order of these ranks vary from one place to another, but these are general examples:

• Police officer, deputy sheriff, trooper, agent
• Sergeant
• Lieutenant
• Captain
• Commander, Major or other intermediate middle-management rank
• Deputy or assistant chief, undersheriff, asst. superintendent
• Chief of police, sheriff, superintendent, commissioner

The larger the department is, the more of these ranks they are likely to have. Detectives are investigators who are at the same authority level as police officers.

A law enforcement agency may have many, many job titles, especially for non-sworn employees. Jobs that were traditionally performed by sworn officers are increasingly assigned to non-sworn employees who require less training and don't receive the more liberal and expensive retirement benefits of sworn officers.