Boston, MA, police procedure, and a cop's salary

TNK

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
540
Reaction score
64
Location
Nevada
I feel like I'm asking a lot but, here goes nothing:

My main character is a detective with the Boston PD. What I need to know is this:

1. How much would he be making?

2. Where in the city could he afford to live?

3. My character works for a made up department, (they deal with supernatural crimes), but I'm basing it on real departments. So any information on how they're run would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time. :)
 

Snick

Sockpuppet
Banned
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
934
Reaction score
86
Location
Havatoo
I haven't seen the pay grades for more than ten years, but there is lot of variation for seniority. If he has only a few years, then he is't making much. With ten years he would be making a reasonable amount. They can also make lage amounts of money for special details. There probably arepolice living in nearly all parts of Boston, but Beacon Hill and the Back Bay would be out of reach for most police.

There is this article that I found by searching.
http://www.bostonherald.com/projects/payroll/boston/
 

TNK

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
540
Reaction score
64
Location
Nevada
Thank you! :)

Now it's time for more research.
 

Rowan

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 24, 2009
Messages
2,638
Reaction score
1,140
Location
In the red zone
I feel like I'm asking a lot but, here goes nothing:

My main character is a detective with the Boston PD. What I need to know is this:

1. How much would he be making?

2. Where in the city could he afford to live?

3. My character works for a made up department, (they deal with supernatural crimes), but I'm basing it on real departments. So any information on how they're run would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time. :)

Start here:
http://www.cityofboston.gov/police/exam.asp
Base salary $46,000.
Salary depends on rank, time on the job, and of course over-time. ;)

http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/police-officer-Salary-Details-Boston-MA.aspx

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1789261/posts

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/05/06/police_pay_can_exceed_250k/

http://www.ehow.com/info_7742167_boston-police-salary.html


Boston, like any other city, has affluent areas and run-down developments. I'd check out a map and then look at real estate prices in various areas (to include apartment rental rates and go from there). Where he lives depends on whether or not he's single and living on one salary or has a wife who also works full time, etc.

You can model your department after a task force (I was a fed assigned to one). You could have a LT in charge, a few feds, and an array of detectives from other local departments. If you want all Boston PD personnel, you can tailor this to suit your needs. Have it run by a Boston PD LT and then staff it with detectives. Would they rely on the "regular" PD for uniform support? If not, throw a handful onto the task force as a special assignment. Check out Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series for reference as her MC consults for a St. Louis PD supernatural police force.

The unit would run like any other. A call comes in and a detective is assigned to the case. If regular Boston PD respond and determine it's a "supe" crime, they'd contact the LT and he'd respond or assign a LT.

I hope that helps! Hopefully someone more familiar with downtown Boston can help with the real estate questions. I worked on the Cape but was in Boston a lot. :)
 
Last edited:

TNK

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
540
Reaction score
64
Location
Nevada
Thank you! :hooray:

Now I have some idea on how to set everything up. :)
 

ChristyM

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 8, 2011
Messages
67
Reaction score
7
I think it would be most realistic if the cop came from a specific area. A cop's salary doesn't mean that they would "move up" to a nicer neighborhood, but they would stick closer to their roots. So, a Somerville cop would be born and raised in Somerville (even if working in Boston), just like a cop from Roslindale, Brighton, etc. Where they work shouldn't equal exactly where they live.
 

KimJo

Outside the box, with the werewolves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
4,028
Reaction score
356
Location
somewhere in Massachusetts
Website
karennacolcroft.com
I agree with Christy. Obviously not everyone's going to be the same, but it seems like a lot of people who grow up in Boston live their lives in the same part of the city. I live in a town just outside the Boston city limits; I've only been here for a couple years, but I've heard people talking about living down the street from their parents, who live in the house that one of *their* parents owned, and so forth. One of the town librarians here told me what a stir she caused in her family when she moved just two miles and across the bridge from Boston into our town when she got married. Her family had lived in the same three-block radius for three generations.

Obviously that isn't to say that all lifelong Bostonians would live in the same part of Boston all their lives, but it does seem to happen sometimes. So the part of the city that your cop lives in might depend on whether he grew up in the city (and if so where) as well as his pay.

Boston is expensive to live in, by the way.(At least by my standards; I'm from Maine, though, and things are less expensive there. We pay $1200 a month for a two-bedroom apartment with only water and sewer included in the rent. (We made it a three-bedroom by building a temporary wall between the two halves of the living room, but it's officially a two-bedroom.) Within the actual city limits, rents tend to be higher.