h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the United States, our equivlent to the specials would be reserve officers and deputies. Many agencies, inlcuding my own have a few reserve officers. They have to maintain the same certification as full-time officers. They must complete the academy and have 20 hours of training a year.

Most agencies treat the officers the same as regular officers. They carry simliar equipment, drive their own own cars, and make arrests. In my agency they sometimes have better equipment than the regular officers. They have a seperate budget that they use to buy some pretty neat stuff. Sometimes they'll lend us stuff. A few of the reservists even have take home cars. One is a dog handler.

They've provided a great deal of assistance to us. They have aseperate mission from us. They handle most of the parades and smaller special events so we're not bothered with them. They also fill in for us working the road and provide training.

Our resrevists are allowed to hold rank, which has been a great boon to me. I'm a sergeant. If it wasn't for the reservists coming in to work for me, I'd never be able to get a weekend off.

Most of the reservists we have are former officers who've gone on to make real money. They just do this for fun.

Some agencies treat their reservists differently. We hired one guy who was a reserve deputy sheriff. He told me that they didn't want their reservists to doanythign but serve papers and warrants. Now serving warrants seems like great fun to me, but I couldn't be in a marked car without being able to make traffic stops.

I'm pretty happy with our reserve officers. I expect that when I come to my senses and get a real job, I'll still stay on with the reserves.

Yes, the way reserve police get to do things in the states is sometimes discussed over here when Specials are thinking about how to convince those in charge to make things better for them. Sometimes the conclusion is that reservists have it better, sometimes that they have it worse. I suppose it depends what areas you're comparing and what your criteria are.

Anyway, I'm going for things the other way around - proper job + Specials first, then, maybe, regulars. We'll see, I'm not sure about full-time yet. I need to make it into the Specials first, after all...