Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers
Maintain order and protect life and property by enforcing local, tribal, state, or federal laws and ordinances. Perform a combination of the following duties: patrol a specific area; direct traffic; issue traffic summonses; investigate accidents; apprehend and arrest suspects, or serve legal processes of courts. Includes police officers working at educational institutions.
A wage reference for United States.
Published wage percentiles describe a distribution within the source occupation group. They provide context for a career decision; employer packages and job offers have their own terms.
This wage group may include multiple detailed occupations. The figures are for the source group, which may be broader than Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers. They are not an exact-title, employer, experience or seniority match.
May 2025 · USD · United States. Annual and hourly figures are shown only when the source publishes them; neither is calculated from the other.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage data, distributed through the O*NET® OnLine service.
Annual wage thresholds
USD per year
Hourly wage thresholds
USD per hour
| Percentile | Annual wage (USD/year) | Hourly wage (USD/hour) |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $47,510 | $22.84 |
| 25th | $59,290 | $28.50 |
| 50th · Median | $76,210 | $36.64 |
| 75th | $97,600 | $46.93 |
| 90th | $115,120 | $55.35 |
“≥” means at least the published amount; “≤” means at most that amount. These are bounds, not exact values. “Not published” means the source did not provide that figure. Occupational wages follow the source definition and do not establish an employer’s base salary, equity or total compensation.
Where does your number sit?
Compare an entered wage with the published thresholds for United States. Your entry stays on this page.
This compares wage amounts to published percentile thresholds. It does not estimate your personal percentile, adjust for your experience, or compare total compensation. Match the wage definition and occupation group before using the result.
What this career involves.
Occupation definitions describe common work. Responsibilities and requirements vary by employer and specific job.
Selected title examples
Expand more title examples (48)
Typical tasks
- Provide for public safety by maintaining order, responding to emergencies, protecting people and property, enforcing motor vehicle and criminal laws, and promoting good community relations.
- Identify, pursue, and arrest suspects and perpetrators of criminal acts.
- Verify that the proper legal charges have been made against law offenders.
- Render aid to accident survivors and other persons requiring first aid for physical injuries.
- Record facts to prepare reports that document incidents and activities.
- Review facts of incidents to determine if criminal act or statute violations were involved.
Expand more tasks (24)
- Investigate illegal or suspicious activities.
- Drive vehicles or patrol specific areas to detect law violators, issue citations, and make arrests.
- Monitor, note, report, and investigate suspicious persons and situations, safety hazards, and unusual or illegal activity in patrol area.
- Investigate traffic accidents and other accidents to determine causes and to determine if a crime has been committed.
- Execute arrest warrants, locating and taking persons into custody.
- Relay complaint and emergency-request information to appropriate agency dispatchers.
- Patrol specific area on foot, horseback, or motorized conveyance, responding promptly to calls for assistance.
- Monitor traffic to ensure motorists observe traffic regulations and exhibit safe driving procedures.
- Testify in court to present evidence or act as witness in traffic and criminal cases.
- Evaluate complaint and emergency-request information to determine response requirements.
- Place people in protective custody.
- Patrol and guard courthouses, grand jury rooms, or assigned areas to provide security, enforce laws, maintain order, and arrest violators.
- Transport or escort prisoners and defendants en route to courtrooms, prisons or jails, attorneys' offices, or medical facilities.
- Photograph or draw diagrams of crime or accident scenes and interview principals and eyewitnesses.
- Notify patrol units to take violators into custody or to provide needed assistance or medical aid.
- Direct traffic flow and reroute traffic in case of emergencies.
- Question individuals entering secured areas to determine their business, directing and rerouting individuals as necessary.
- Inform citizens of community services and recommend options to facilitate longer-term problem resolution.
- Provide road information to assist motorists.
- Supervise law enforcement staff, such as jail staff, officers, and deputy sheriffs.
- Process prisoners, and prepare and maintain records of prisoner bookings and prisoner status during booking and pre-trial process.
- Locate and confiscate real or personal property, as directed by court order.
- Conduct community programs for all ages concerning topics such as drugs and violence.
- Serve statements of claims, subpoenas, summonses, jury summonses, orders to pay alimony, and other court orders.
Skills used in this work
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
Expand more skills (29)
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Negotiation
- Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Management of Personnel Resources
- Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Management of Material Resources
- Obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
- Mathematics
- Using mathematics to solve problems.
- Operation and Control
- Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Management of Financial Resources
- Determining how money will be spent to get the work done, and accounting for these expenditures.
- Quality Control Analysis
- Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Troubleshooting
- Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
- Technology Design
- Generating or adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs.
- Programming
- Writing computer programs for various purposes.
- Science
- Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
- Equipment Maintenance
- Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
- Equipment Selection
- Determining the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job.
- Installation
- Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or programs to meet specifications.
- Operations Analysis
- Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
- Repairing
- Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
Explore wages by location.
565 retained state and local wage references are available. Start with these selected locations, or search the full market directory for this career.
Selected states
Selected metro and nonmetro areas
Available links reflect retained source coverage for this career.
Find the next step that fits.
Look at current disclosed job ranges, explore supported employer salary evidence, or build a proposed hiring range with your own assumptions.