Pros
Job security. Leave entitlements are generous. Salaries are high for roles that do not require prior qualifications.
Cons
Professionalism & training: Highly unprofessional culture, especially so from the middle management (Sergeant - Inspector) sector. Mediocrity is widely accepted. Middle management typically do not have tertiary qualifications and therefore struggles with increasingly more qualified junior police officers. The in-house training is designed to be of limited value inside the organisation while having no value outside the organisation. To seek promotion, Detectives have to drop the Detective rank and sidestep before seeking to go up a rank. This is a dated unofficial policy driven by just as dated higher ranks. Culture: Nepotism is commonly accepted and even openly joked about. Bullying, belittling, sexism and xenophobia flourish unabated and sadly infiltrate the culture of newer recruits due to exposure on the divisional van. Flexibility: There is zero flexibility regarding: WFH/ Hybrid working with no justifiable reason as to why. Health: Policing, in general, is detrimental to both physical and mental well-being. The mental health mechanisms in place are purely tokenistic to tick a box, i.e. Supervisors complete a 30-minute online module and are then qualified to 'assess' the mental health of members following a major and traumatising incident. IT: IT infrastructure and IT platforms are antiquated and frustrating to use. For example, $300 Dell laptops, that routinely fail, service almost the entire police force and an MSDos program is the organisation's primary intelligence platform. Policy: Sworn Police and unsworn VPS staff make (reactionary) policies with no engagement with the 'troops on the ground'. To conclude, sadly, career coppers and career VPS who refuse to progress and innovate cause the organisation to remain well behind the times.