One important question I haven't seen addressed anywhere: are suspended police officers allowed to take on other work?
Things I know that lead me to wonder this: some employers prohibit their employees from taking on other work, or restrict or vet the work the employees can take on. This most often happen in positions of public trust and responsibility, in public sector positions, and where there is potential for conflict of interest. Police officers fall in all three categories. I have no idea if there are restrictions on outside employment, but it certainly seems plausible.
If suspended police officers are not allowed to take on outside work, or if the restrictions or approval process for such employment make it impracticable, then it isn't appropriate to suspend them without pay before they've been found guilty. I fully and vocally support getting risky officers off the street, but we don't want them (or their dependents) to starve to death or lose their homes!
And it's possible that, in borderline cases, the grave threat to the officer's and their family's security and quality of life posed by a suspension without pay would lead the powers that be to choose not to suspend them. If you know that a certain officer just bought a house and has a baby on the way, and you can maybe get away with not suspending them, you might choose not so as not to imperil a young family at a vulnerable time. Whereas if they're suspended with pay, they're off the streets where they can't hurt anyone until the situation is resolved.
Another question this article raises:
Every year in Ontario about 50 police officers are suspended with pay. The current rules allow officers to collect full salaries while under suspension, an expense that adds up to about $5 million annually.
That's $100,000 per suspended officer. That seems high. How much do police officers get paid, and how long does the typical suspension last?
2 comments:
Police officers are allowed to take other work when they're not suspended. Many work as security guards, or as I found out, doing security for film shoots. Given that, I don't think they could be prevented from looking for and accepting other work while suspended - but I don't know for sure.
I was hoping someone else came by to answer this. Just posting to do the check thing, I always forget.
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