# State Police or Local Police



## Guest (Nov 22, 2004)

Hi All,

Thank you very much for a great informative site. Well after about 10 years of pursuing a LE career ,2 bachelors degrees, 8 years military service and a career in high tech i am finally getting a chance. The problem is that I currently have offers from one local community(that I grew up in) and a top notch state agency in another state. It seems like it is a fork in the road and will close the door forever on one of the opportunities.


Can you people help point out the +/- of each career path? as a side note, I consider myself highly motativated and I am looking for the opportunity to have a successful career in LE. I also love to train and do well in academics. Is one of the choices more limiting? I have a family and a child so a relocation is also a lot of work.

Thanks for input.


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## kttref (Oct 5, 2004)

If you don't mind me asking, where are these opportunities? That will help a lot of people in answering the questions  Good for you though!


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## Negaproach (Nov 30, 2002)

I think to answer your question largely depends on what your looking for in a career and dept. I work for a local dept. with 44 officers total. My dept. does offer some specilized training and chances for some advancement. We have a dive/rescue team, traffic unit, detectives of course, commercial vehicle enforcement plus the usual Sgt's LT's etc. My department is great in the sense that its small enough where everyone knows eachother and we're on a first name basis not like a number. Larger local departments of course may offer other things, gangs, K9, Narcotics etc. 

The state police end of things seem to be well trained and of course have many career tracks one can take. A dept. of 44 guys will never have a air unit. What I lose in opportunities on a smaller department is made up for in the great work environment i'm in. I think you need to get an idea of what you want to make of this career, then size up which dept. will fill those needs. Of course family also should be a major aspect. If one department requires a larger sacrifice for your family then that is a drawback that needs to be considered.


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