# Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers

> Maintain order and protect life and property by enforcing local, tribal, state, or federal laws and ordinances. Perform a combination of the following duties: patrol a specific area; direct traffic; issue traffic summonses; investigate accidents; apprehend and arrest suspects, or serve legal processes of courts. Includes police officers working at educational institutions.

- **SOC code:** 33-3051.00
- **Canonical URL:** https://singulariki.com/roles/role-33-3051-00
- **Also known as:** Deputy, Deputy Sheriff, Patrol Officer, Police Officer, Law Enforcement Officer, Patrol Deputy, Peace Officer, Police Patrol Officer
- **Frame:** "AI exposure" means task overlap (how codifiable the work is), not jobs lost or a forecast. Every figure below is traced to a named public dataset.

## What this work is

**Core tasks** (O*NET):
- Identify, pursue, and arrest suspects and perpetrators of criminal acts.
- Provide for public safety by maintaining order, responding to emergencies, protecting people and property, enforcing motor vehicle and criminal laws, and promoting good community relations.
- Record facts to prepare reports that document incidents and activities.
- Render aid to accident survivors and other persons requiring first aid for physical injuries.
- Investigate illegal or suspicious activities.
- Review facts of incidents to determine if criminal act or statute violations were involved.
- Monitor, note, report, and investigate suspicious persons and situations, safety hazards, and unusual or illegal activity in patrol area.
- Testify in court to present evidence or act as witness in traffic and criminal cases.
- Process prisoners, and prepare and maintain records of prisoner bookings and prisoner status during booking and pre-trial process.
- Monitor traffic to ensure motorists observe traffic regulations and exhibit safe driving procedures.
- Relay complaint and emergency-request information to appropriate agency dispatchers.
- Drive vehicles or patrol specific areas to detect law violators, issue citations, and make arrests.

## Skills, tools, capabilities

**Knowledge, skills & abilities** (O*NET, highest importance first):
- Public Safety and Security _(knowledge)_
- Law and Government _(knowledge)_
- Oral Comprehension _(ability)_
- Problem Sensitivity _(ability)_
- English Language _(knowledge)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(ability)_
- Inductive Reasoning _(ability)_
- Oral Expression _(ability)_
- Psychology _(knowledge)_
- Customer and Personal Service _(knowledge)_
- Active Listening _(essential_skill)_
- Speaking _(essential_skill)_

**Skills in demand:**
- English Language _(Common Skill)_
- Inductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Psychology _(Specialized Skill)_
- Social Perceptiveness _(Common Skill)_
- Active Listening _(Common Skill)_
- Information Ordering _(Specialized Skill)_
- Critical Thinking _(Common Skill)_
- Active Learning _(Common Skill)_
- Speech Recognition _(Specialized Skill)_
- Reading Comprehension _(Common Skill)_
- Telecommunications _(Specialized Skill)_

**Tools & technology:**
- Microsoft Access _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Excel _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Office software _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Outlook _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Visio _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Windows _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Word _(hot technology)_
- Computer aided composite drawing software
- Computer aided dispatch software
- Corel WordPerfect Office Suite
- Crime mapping software

## AI exposure & outlook

- **AI task-overlap index:** 37th percentile (Moderate) across all occupations — composite of current-era exposure studies (ai-exposure-index-v1).
- **Overall AI exposure (Felten et al.):** 30th percentile (Low) — source: felten_aioe.
- **LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou):** 40th percentile (Moderate) — source: eloundou_gamma.
- **AI assistant applicability (Microsoft):** 47th percentile (Moderate) — source: microsoft_applicability.
- **Frey–Osborne (2013, historical computerization estimate):** 28th percentile — kept separate from current-era studies.
- **Remote-capable (Dingel–Neiman):** no — task structure, not who actually works remote.
- **Projected employment (BLS 2024–34):** 3.1% growth (About average); 53.7k annual openings; 698.8k → 720.8k jobs.
- **Pay & employment (BLS OEWS, May 2024):** median $76,290; 666,990 employed.

## Sources

- **O*NET** (30.3) — U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)** (May 2024) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS Employment Projections** (2024–2034) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **Anthropic Economic Index** (v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27)) — Anthropic. https://www.anthropic.com/economic-index
- **Microsoft “Working with AI”** (working-with-ai) — Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/
- **“GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.)** (arXiv 2303.10130) — OpenAI / academic. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130
- **AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE)** (Felten, Raj & Seamans) — academic. https://github.com/AIOE-Data/AIOE
- **Frey & Osborne (2013)** (frey-osborne-automation) — academic. https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-future-of-employment/
- **Dingel & Neiman (2020)** (dingel-neiman-workathome) — academic. https://github.com/jdingel/DingelNeiman-workathome

---
_Generated from Singulariki's joined dataset; data snapshot 2026-06-02T21:00:32.945303+00:00. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-33-3051-00_