How many hours do police officers work?

Police departments work on a 24/7 basis to serve and protect their communities, meaning an individual police officer's hours can vary widely, depending on the particular department's need.

Some police departments have shifts in the 10 to 12-hour range and have shortened overall work weeks as a result. In this case, this means longer shifts but fewer work days in a week.

Another variation is monthly deployment plans. These deal with the seniority of the officers in the department. More senior officers have the opportunity to have more control over their scheduling.

Three to six-month rotations are also common. These mean police officers will have set schedules for three to six months, and after completing them, they are reassigned new schedules.

Rotating days off are another facet of police working hours. Rather than having set days off, some departments employ weekly schedules, where officers' days off change from week to week.

For police patrol officers, the most common schedule is working four days per week for 10-hour shifts. This scheduling strategy is used by police departments to ensure overlap, in other words, that there will always be available officers for patrol.

Most of the time, the only police officers who experience the traditional work day of 9am to 5pm are veteran officers that have been afforded the ability to set their own schedule. In addition, certain police departments do not even have this standard work shift as a scheduling option.

Rookie police officers can expect to work a lot of nights, holidays, and weekends, when just starting out in the field. Oftentimes veteran officers also have to work some of these less-desirable shifts as well.