Band 5+: In some countries, the number of police officers in active service is decreasing. What do you think may be the reasons for this? What effects might this have on society? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

I believe that the high paying jobs and the intention to escape from stressful work conditions has negatively affected the number of police officers in active service.

With the boom in technology and subsequent globalisation, a lot of demand was seen in the business and industrial space which created excellent opportunity for innovation and competition, with attractive salary and benefits. As a result, more people opted for these jobs and causing a decline in demand for conventional jobs like police force, clerks and even farming to some extent. This pattern could be clearly observed in India, where people are aiming to get into IT sector nowadays because of the higher salary and perks, and vacancies in the police force is gradually increasing. The ratio of a police to number of people, which is recomended to be 1:250, is now at 1:825 making it difficult for the officers to attend and handle the cases being received on daily basis.

Also, most of the jobs becoming more leisure. Salaries are paid as per the number of hours worked and also with working days in a week reduced to 5, saturday and sunday being holiday, a lot of perks and benefits are being enjoyed by corporate employees. Whereas a police office would have to work with minimal holidays and would even have to spend extra hours in some cases, making the job more stressful.

So, when younger people tend to opt for corporate jobs, not only for its attractive salaries, but also for an amazing work culture, we get to see that the number of active police personnels are reducing.