How2Day: Salaries of Law Enforcement Jobs

Police officers' salaries vary based on their specific job functions. Siri Stafford/Lifesize/Getty Images
If you're interested in a career in law enforcement, you may be curious about potential salaries in the industry. Law enforcement jobs can be lucrative relative to other lines of work because you're being compensated for putting your life in danger every day. Salaries vary depending on the sector of law enforcement in which you work.

Police officers in the U.S. had a median annual salary of about $51,000 in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, which publishes reports on average national earnings for specific occupations. Salaries vary widely across the country, with bigger, busier departments in urban areas paying officers higher salaries. Though the middle 50 percent of police officers in the country earned between $38,850 and $64,940 in 2008, newly hired police officers in San Francisco make between $82,602 and $110,526.

Police supervisors, which includes sergeants, lieutenants, department chiefs and other leaders, made an average of $75,490 in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The middle 50 percent made between $59,320 and $92,700. You can research the salaries of law enforcement employees because their incomes are public record. The San Francisco Chronicle publishes an annual list of the city's police department salaries that are above $100,000. The newspaper named 2,036 police department employees to the list for 2009. The top earner on the list was the San Francisco Police Department's Deputy Chief, who made more than $516,000 and was the city's top paid employee.

Federal law enforcement jobs, most of which are in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, tend to be lower on average than jobs at police departments. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that federal law enforcement agents made an average of $46,620, and federal law enforcement supervisors made an average of $89,930.

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