While they may work typical eight-hour shifts while on duty, they can be called out for an emergency at any point. Almost all police departments patrol 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. A day for a patrol officer in rural Iowa is different from that of a patrol officer in big city ghetto. Avoiding mandatory overtime hours. Although the number of hours reduced is usually minimal, one has to remember that when a police officer under the 12-hour shift does use a sick day, it is at a rate 50% greater than that of the 8-hour shift. Sick leave has been reduced in many departments utilizing the 12-hour schedule. Some police agencies are trying to avoid officer fatigue by: Encouraging officers to engage in physical activity. Therefore, the police 'day' on Monday starts at 6am and finishes at 6am on Tuesday. How long can a police officer work in a single day? Officers who work afternoons and midnight who make arrests have to attend court during the day, they are paid OT. per shift, your 10-hour schedule will have shorter blocks of work (two to four days) and shorter breaks (one to three days). If you don’t have 7 officers or a multiple of 7 (14, 21, 28, etc.) Many officers are disappointed when they see these patterns because there are so many one and two-day breaks. Time to Go to Work . What the cops do depends on their assignment and the type of community they are policing. Amendola of the Police Foundation recommends that law enforcement agencies limit officers to no more than 14 hours per day and mandate rest periods between long shifts. That adds 7.5 hours to the week. And many police officers are willing to risk their health because overtime provides additional income. An officer works 9am to 5pm on Monday and is scheduled to work 9am to 5pm on Tuesday. It's Monday morning and your alarm pulls you from your sleep, which you didn't get a lot of last night. In many lager cities Federal money is used to pay officers to work one of their days off in certain high crime areas. Military Police Officer Hours – Like many law enforcement officials, military police officers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Police Day is 6am to 6am. No officer can work more than 15 hours in one 24-hour period. Supervisors at the individual police divisions are responsible for keeping an eye on the officers doing paid duty shifts, making sure they come to work, and are not too tired to do … When I was a detective I averaged 60 hours a week over the course of the year. Baton Rouge: Officers are allowed to work up to 16 hours per day, and an average of 320 overtime hours are worked across the department during each two-week pay period by officers, said Sgt. This past weekend, though, you were the detective on call, and it was a busy one. 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