Careers in Law Enforcement with Suffolk County, NY, Deputy Undersheriff John Becker

Choosing a career in law enforcement means committing to service, continuous learning, and personal growth. In this episode, I have the honor of hosting Deputy Undersheriff John Becker, a seasoned professional with a 27-year law enforcement career. Becker's unique journey, from an NYPD officer to his current role in Suffolk County, New York's Sheriff’s Office, offers a wealth of insights. If you're looking for a profession that offers variety, stability, and the chance to make a meaningful impact, tune into this episode where we discuss: 

• The difference between the Sheriff’s Office and the Police Department
• The benefits of a career in law enforcement
• The importance of solid communication skills in police work
• Essential skills for law enforcement
• How the department supports mental health and well-being with professional counseling, peer support programs, and wellness initiatives
• Practical tips for what to do while you are waiting to take the police academy exam

Mentioned on the show:
Suffolk County Sheriff's Office Career Opportunities for uniform and non-uniform positions

Show Guest:
Deputy Undersheriff John Becker has a 27-year law enforcement career, beginning in 1997 as an NYPD officer, earning commendations for felony arrests. In 2002, he joined the Suffolk County, NY, Sheriff’s Office, serving in various bureaus, including Detention, Headquarters, Enforcement, and Domestic Violence. As a certified instructor, he trained recruits in breath analysis, DWI detection, field sobriety, impaired driving enforcement, and radar-lidar. He also served as a Drug Recognition Expert. From 2013, Becker was President of the Deputy Sheriffs Police Benevolent Association, negotiating contracts and lobbying for legislation. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from SUNY Cortland.

Chapters

• 0:00 Career Paths in Law Enforcement
• 13:24 Transitioning Into Law Enforcement Careers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey friends, I am Jill Griffin, the host of the Career Refresh podcast, and today I have the honor of hosting Deputy Undersheriff John Becker. He is a seasoned law enforcement professional with over 27 years on the job, and Becker's unique journey started with the NYPD, which is the New York Police Department, and has now migrated to his current role in Suffolk County, new York, which is about an hour-ish of show outside of New York City, in the Sheriff's Office, and this episode offers a wealth of insight into law enforcement opportunities. If you are looking for a profession that offers variety, stability and a chance to make a meaningful impact in your community, then tune into this episode. As we discuss first the difference between the sheriff's office and the police department. I will tell you I didn't know I was like what's a sheriff? I mean, could I be more of a New York City girl? Or what I was like? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 0:52

We also then talk about the benefits of a career in law enforcement, the importance of building solid communication skills in police work, the essential skills for law enforcement, and then how the department supports mental health and well-being with professional counseling, peer support programs and wellness initiatives. We also provide practical tips for what to do while you're waiting to get into the police academy and take that exam or to the sheriff's office exam. So choosing a career in law enforcement means a commitment to service, continuous learning and personal growth. And if it's something that you're interested in, go to your local police department and local sheriff's office and check out their websites. This I'm dropping the links to Suffolk County and the New York area in the show notes here, but check out what's going on in your area, because there's also non-uniform positions in addition to positions that are uniform personnel that are available. Friends, if you have questions, email me at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom, and until next time, embrace possibility, be intentional, inspired and kind. I'll see you soon, john. Thank you for being here, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Great to see you.

Speaker 1: 2:03

It's great to see you too, so I have so many starter questions for you, but before we go into my normal questions, I would love for you to explain to our listeners what a sheriff does and how it's different from a police officer.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Sure, and that's a question we get a lot. Really, what's the difference between the deputy sheriffs that we see on the roadway and what does the office of the sheriff do? So our, the sheriff's office of Suffolk County actually has a rich history. We go back to 1683. So before there was a United States of America, there was a sheriff in Suffolk County.

Speaker 1: 2:41

That's pretty incredible job. I didn't know that.

Speaker 2: 2:43

It really is and you know, from the formation of the county there was an elected sheriff, and so it's very exciting, you know, when you think about how long we've been in existence. So our job is really. You know, when people think of the sheriff's office, they'll think of the correctional facilities and then they'll think of the deputy sheriffs in terms of doing evictions, maybe prisoner transportation, but it's really much more multifaceted than that. You know, in our correctional facilities, obviously, the officers there their main function making sure the safety and security of the facility, but they're involved in much more. They have we have our Corrections Intelligence Center, where they're gaining all sorts of information from the prison population and sharing it with our law enforcement partners from the prison population and sharing it with our law enforcement partners. So it's really exciting. We we work with all of our federal, state, local partners sharing information that we're able to obtain, which is a it's a resource that really no other law enforcement agency has. So that's really really exciting.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Plus the correctional officers, they're in part of all sorts of task forces federal state as well, district attorneys, task forces and then you have our deputy sheriffs, where right now there's 275 deputy sheriffs and at any given time you may have a civil deputy who's doing an eviction, but what we're seeing now is an uptick in noncompliance, where they're now being evicted from their home and they're not simply leaving. So a lot of times there there's a rise in having to use force to affect this, this eviction, and it's scary. Or you may have one of our dwe team members that are pulling somebody over and they're under the influence of. We're seeing an uptick in what's called k2 or synthetic marijuana, or they're under the influence of pcp. I mean, these are really dangerous drugs that are out there and now, with the legalization of marijuana, you can stop at any red light in suffolk county and you you can smell it. It's uh, I would say when I drive along the expressway.

Speaker 2: 5:05

I can smell it which is a scary thought.

Speaker 1: 5:07

My windows open, I can smell it. I'm always like that's interesting. So you're coming from a New York perspective and a Long Island perspective and I know you can't answer for all locales, but is it for our listeners who are across the U? S or maybe even you, maybe even globally? Is there a similar role do you find with sheriffs across in other locales, or is this pretty unique to New York?

Speaker 2: 5:33

So the sheriff's offices in New York pretty much have the same function. We are the enforcement arm of the courts, so our job is when there's a court order to be affected, if it's an eviction or if it's an order of protection. We're now tasked with these extreme risk protection orders or ERPOs, and you know we may have to go in and seize an individual's weapons and they may not be happy about it and this has become a task that's been put on us and in Suffolk County we are leading the state in ERPOs. In fact, you can take all the other counties in the state combined and Suffolk County is doing more ERPOs than all of them. So it's tremendous and it's again, it's dangerous work and all credit goes to our deputy sheriffs that are out there. They do it every single day without incident. It's fantastic actually, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:27

No, thank you. Thank you for that explanation. I think it really helps people kind of understand. As we're having the rest of our conversation and I wanted to ask you the question that I ask everybody. I mean, I know that you started in law enforcement 27 years ago and you have a very long career, but did you always know you wanted to do that? What did you think you wanted to do when you grew up?

Speaker 2: 6:49

It does sound cliche, but I did always want to be a police officer. You know, you see the cops on the TV shows growing up and you say, wow, that you know. Of course that looks like something I want to do. So it was always. It was always there. I always had that drive and but it's interesting I also had kind of another. So it was sort of a crossroads that I faced, you know which. I also wanted to be a teacher and so also and the idea behind both was and I'm sure probably all of the people that watch a podcast can agree with they've all had a bad teacher and they may have had a bad experience with a police officer. So that kind of drove me to say you know, I could do better. You know I could be a better teacher, I could be a better coach, I could be a better police officer. So that was kind of the idea why I wanted to get involved and it's really public service in both careers.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Yeah, I love that as sort of an internal GPS for yourself of, like I can do better, so it starts with me. I think that's a really great philosophy to have All right so fast. Let's go fast forward now. So you start out as a New York City police officer. Take us through sort of the high level points of your career that got you to be deputy undersheriff.

Speaker 2: 8:09

So it's a long. It was a long road. I know it's a lot.

Speaker 1: 8:13

You've had a lot of experience. That's why I'm like let's go high level and kind of talk through how you got here.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Yeah, so I started the Academy in 1997. And you know, back then the the academy was located in 20th street, manhattan and anyone that's attended that academy will tell you it. It was kind of old, it was kind of decrepit. If most of the cops that are from my generation attended there said I never worried about COVID because I showered in the New York city Police Academy, I mean just, it was horrific condition but I survived. I survived.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Because my New York City apartment I have an apartment in New York City is right near that precinct the one, two and then the academy. That's right there and it took a while when I first moved in there I mean so many years ago to be like why are all these men and women walking by in sort of police uniforms but not actually police uniforms? And then I found out later that it was the academy.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah, they have the, uh, the gray shirts that's what kind of lets you know that they're the recruits and, uh, what I call the Nathan's hat, um and um. But yeah, it was, uh, you know, so having to take the train in there every day and it was very long days and after six months and doing my field training, I graduated and I was assigned to the 32nd precinct in Harlem. So, being a kid from Kings Park, new York, I didn't really know much about New York City, so this was really an eye opener. Twenty three years old and now you're going into a place you're unfamiliar with. But I'll tell you it really was a blessing because that particular precinct just on the sheer call volume and the things that you get exposed to, you learn very quickly.

Speaker 1: 9:59

You're learning on the job fast.

Speaker 2: 10:01

Oh yeah, absolutely. Job fast. Oh yeah, absolutely. So. The the five years I was there, I I could say that you experience more than most police officers will see throughout the country. Uh, just in that time it just uh. So again, I'm I'm blessed. And the other kind of takeaway was it allowed me the ability to learn to talk to people. So I always said I can be police officer anywhere in the country, having worked there, because you learn to de-escalate situations and get people to do what they want to do. And I had a lot of arrests while I was in there, but I did it without incident and without complaint. I'm very proud of that because you can be an active police officer and you can do it correctly.

Speaker 1: 10:42

I love that. I love that you're saying that. Yeah, it's really important for people to know that. So what then prompted you to go from the NYPD to Suffolk County?

Speaker 2: 10:55

It was interesting. So two of the guys that I had worked with in the precinct let me know that there was an exam in Suffolk County for deputy sheriff and to be honest, I did not know much as to what deputy sheriffs in Suffolk County did. I knew that there were police officers and I had some vague idea. But at the time I said, you know, the thought of not having to drive 60 miles to work was very, very tempting and I knew the pay was certainly better, which was obviously important as well. So I took the test and I was very lucky, I scored high and I was called and then I made the transition and it was certainly a big move and at the time I had just gotten married when they called me. So my honeymoon was actually over a weekend. We just went away for a couple of days, but it didn't matter, I was happy.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I hope you've made it up to her.

Speaker 2: 11:57

We have. Yes, so you know, came out to Suffolk County and, you know, hit the ground running. I worked in every uniform command and really tried to expose myself to as much as possible, and you have to be willing to take that chance. It's easy. At the time when I was in New York City, I had just reached top pay. So it takes you five years. Back then it took you five years to reach a top pay. So now what happens is you can be tempted to reach that point of no return and just say you know what, I'll have to start over and pay, I may have to go through the academy again, and these are things that will go through people's mind and, let's be honest, people resist change. So you have to be willing to take a chance. And it certainly was worth it chance and, um, and it certainly was worth it. You know, I don't, I don't regret a single day of it.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Okay, so your um, the work that you're doing now, in addition to being the undersheriff, is that you're also a certified instructor, where you're training new recruits. I would love to if you talk a little bit about law enforcement as a career, because there's many angles to it, um, and I think it would help really people understand, like, what's possible if they want to consider this as a career. So your role as an instructor tell us about that.

Speaker 2: 13:12

It really came. You know, like I said I was, I was working out in Suffolk and I liked I'm the kind of person I like to stay busy. Whenever there was training opportunities I would jump all over. But one of the things prior to me being a police officer, I was actually a teacher.

Speaker 2: 13:29

I taught for a year at Bayport Blue Point School District and I was called it. I worked there every day, but it was a permanent substitute position. In other words, you work there every day but you're actually paid per diem and there's no health benefits or anything else. But I was assigned to a section where they had children who had troubles. They were, they had PINs warrants, they had mental health issues, some of them had prior arrests already and what was happening was they were having difficulty keeping teachers to stay in that classroom. New teachers were going in and they were like this is too much and I quit. So along comes the former wrestling coach and they said, hey, we've got a position for you. So I was assigned there and I loved it and you have to balance between being tough and knowing when to listen, because these were high school kids who have already seen a lot more than most adults have and I was able to be successful there and it was great.

Speaker 2: 14:33

But you know, when I did love teaching but at the time I did take the test to be a New York City police officer, and you know again, having health benefits and good pay and a steady paycheck, I jumped on it and I always wanted to be a police officer. So it was. It was again a difficult decision, but I was happy. So now fast forward. I'm in Suffolk County and I had approached the academy staff and I said you know, listen, I, if you need instructors. And they said absolutely we do.

Speaker 1: 15:03

So because sentence and they were like yes, please, yes sign here.

Speaker 2: 15:06

You know, and because I was already a certified teacher, it was easy and you know right away I was teaching penal law, criminal procedural law. You know a variety of topics and what I tried to do was bring in real world experiences into the classroom, because you can read from a PowerPoint, but you'll put people to sleep very quickly and you know so you have to. You know, say, hey, here's what the law provides for, but here's a funny story of what happened to me back in the day and how it translates. And I got a lot of really good feedback from you know people, not only in the sheriff's office, but I used to instruct different agencies and said, wow, that was a great story and that really helps me remember the material.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Oh okay. So really putting that learning into action is what you know. Everybody learns differently, but that learning into action is what helps people enormously. So as you start to think about you know anybody who's listening to this, whether they're thinking about going into law enforcement directly from either high school, or if they're getting some level of associates or college or they're thinking about making a career change what are some of the both essential and, I would say, soft skills that people need, the hard and essential skills that people need in order to consider law enforcement.

Speaker 2: 16:24

Essential skills that people need in order to consider law enforcement Biggest thing, and it's kind of disturbing to me because I even see it in my own kids.

Speaker 1: 16:32

I call them kids they're older now, but they're rolling in their eyes at you right now.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Yeah, but there's too much reliance on the iPhones and looking people in the eye, having conversations with them.

Speaker 2: 16:46

I see, with this younger generation, what they need to work on is their interpersonal skills, their ability to especially if you're going to go into law enforcement now, you have to have a command presence, the ability to get people to do what you want, and if you're looking down or you seem unsure of yourself, again, you're not always dealing with the best of society. So you have to have, you know, that confidence in yourself to be able to do that. So, really, the communication skills is something that I see is lacking in this young generation. So, you know, in the academy level we try and work on that and get them to, you know, get comfortable with that and giving orders and having that command voice, that command presence, because it's necessary for the job. But there's, it's such a great career law enforcement, especially here in the Sheriff's Office. We have so many opportunities in terms of training, promotion. We are the biggest Sheriff's Office in New York State, so it's it really is a great time to be in law enforcement.

Speaker 1: 17:45

So if someone was thinking of maybe making a career change you know they they work in a corporate job and they're thinking of making a career change into law enforcement what would you recommend they do as far as a path to consider that?

Speaker 2: 17:58

If it's something you want to do, I recommend that you take the test from multiple agencies. You know, do your research, see where you would want to work, but oftentimes the tests are infrequent. Some they're given more than others. Our test for corrections is given yearly, but some of the other ones, like for Suffolk County Police or the New York State Police, they're much less infrequent. So you pretty much have to, you know, do your homework in terms of looking on the job site announcements and seeing when they're giving the test, and make sure you stay on top of it, cause if you missed the deadline it could be a couple of years before they give it again.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Okay, okay, and then so doing that research? So are we saying that it's possible for someone who may be um, didn't work right away and didn't go right away into the police academy, that worked five or six years in a corporate job, can, you know, rotate? And I think there's a perception that you have to do this at like 22 or 20 years old, that you can move in later. Is that a true perception or no?

Speaker 2: 19:07

No, I mean it's, it's you know. Traditionally people would get into it, you know, in their early 20s. But I think now people are number one that they may not be. They may not. A lot of them are going to college so they're not even into the workforce into their 20s. So, and the other thing too, it actually helps you if you have some life experience before you get into law enforcement.

Speaker 2: 19:33

I tend to find that the young officers and some of them this is their first quote, unquote real job and it's a shock to them. You know not only the hours, because, especially here in the sheriff's office, we this is not a 40 hour a week job. There's a lot of forced overtime and you're going to be working different shifts, rotating shifts, weekends, holidays, so that unto itself is a stress. So if you're, you know, if you're coming in and you're completely green to the fact of you know working long hours or midnights and everything else, or we're just having a boss. There's a lot of different personalities of supervisors out there. So if you come in with some real world experience, you tend to really do better in this job. So it's actually a plus on your side. I actually, when I interview people who are now looking to be promoted to investigator. I like to see on their resume that this isn't their first stop, that they have some real world experience that they're bringing to the table.

Speaker 1: 20:38

Right, which I think goes back to your point earlier around the essential skills, meaning the ability to hold the command presence, the ability to communicate. I also think what I would say is reading the room, you probably have a law enforcement term for it, but being able to sense out the nuances that might be going on, which, if your face is always in your electronic devices and you're not actually strengthening those human to human skills, it's much harder.

Speaker 1: 21:07

I think that fits, and even if you're not considering law enforcement, those are great skills obviously to be having within your job, so that's really, really helpful. I would love for you to tell a little bit about how you manage the demands. Like you just talked a bit about some of the long work hours and you might be on an overnight shift. How do you tell new recruits or people who are new to this how to best balance that that the work-life balance, as we would call it?

Speaker 2: 21:36

yeah, and and it's it's hard for them and we understand that. Especially going a few years back, we had, because of you know, if you look at 2020 there was no hiring going on at the time 2020 and 2021 so our numbers of officers dropped to the lowest in decades and what was happening was the work still had to get done, but now we had to do it with a much more pool of officers. So there was a lot forced overtime and we saw that this was creating a huge strain on the mental health of the people working. So, to sheriff toulon's credit, we created a wellness unit to specifically look at this and and say do we have uh officers within our ranks that we see that are struggling with mental health issues? Uh, this year there were uh four suicides. Uh in suffolk county one deputy sheriff, one probation officer and two Suffolk police officers.

Speaker 2: 22:37

So it's real, the stress that these officers are under is real and we have to acknowledge that. As an agency, we have to look and see what can we do better to make sure that that our men and women are, you know, not only going home safely, but once they're home, they're spending time with the family and appreciating, like you said that work-life balance it's so important. You know, the job can't be your everything. You have to find things that you enjoy. If it's, you know, maybe doing some exercise or lifting weights or whatever your hobby is, you know, make sure you have some time to yourself.

Speaker 1: 23:16

Yeah, yeah. Again, I'm really sorry to hear about the loss of your fellow police officers and service members. That's intense. So you mentioned that the sheriff has come up with a well-being program. Tell us a little bit more about that. That's something that I feel like other police departments and sheriff offices nationwide could benefit from.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah, so what they do is they'll actually go around to the different commands and just, you know, talk with people, see how they're doing, what's the feedback, and the point of it is it's not meant to in any way harm somebody that comes forward that says I have a problem. You know we've also seen an uptick with issues with alcoholism and things like that. So you know it's better, for we identify the problem, we treat the problem and we make sure that people are healthy. The other thing we've done is they will check in on people at different milestones throughout their career Everyone, you know when they're new and young, they can handle things, but where are you 10 years into your career, 15 years? Things change. Things can change in your life. Things can change as far as where you thought you would be and you know, maybe you're unhappy in your command.

Speaker 2: 24:32

So, again, just trying to stay on top of things and be proactive in making sure that you know their well-being is being checked on, because that's typically the irony is, when we go to the academy, right, they train you to be, to be tough, to have that command presence and everything else. So the very thing that we train you to do actually works against you in terms of asking for help. Right, because we're tough, I can handle it. If you ask the average law enforcement officer anywhere in this country and you say, hey, how you doing, they're going to say, I'm good, that's all you're going to get out of them. And they very well may not be. And that's the barrier that we try and break down and say you know, hey, you know, if you need to talk to someone and normalize that, it's a culture shift, but we're committed to it, okay.

Speaker 1: 25:29

So the last question I have for you, which you know, either for taking the exam or waiting to take the exam, or for waiting for the academy to start, what advice would you give people who are in that hallway, that waiting zone, which they've been doing as they wait?

Speaker 2: 25:45

Well, the biggest thing is we lose a lot of people on the physical agility.

Speaker 2: 25:48

So, you know, lose a lot of people on the physical agility. So you know, every single day, even if it's, you know, try and do some kind of exercise, some jogging, some pushups, sit-ups, get yourself prepared. Because the worst thing is where you go through the whole process and everything looks good and then you know you don't pass the physical agility, because that's an important piece, unfortunately. So we've actually even have, when we know we have a pool of candidates coming up, we offer a mock agility so we'll put you through the test. It's not recorded or anything, but just so you know where you stand, you know maybe you are short a little bit on the setups or on the run or whatever. So you know what you need to work on and you know, hopefully that's going to help us in terms of recruitment because you know, again, we need the young people involved to be excited, to be motivated about joining law enforcement. So we want to do everything we can to assist them in getting through the process.

Speaker 1: 26:50

I mean, I think that's the perfect place to leave it. So thank you so much, john. I really appreciate you having this conversation with me and letting people know about the various opportunities in law enforcement. Anyone listening, as always. You can send me questions to hello at JillGriffinCoachingcom. We will get them to John, he will answer them. We'll probably even get him to come back if we have questions because, again, we want a robust society that has strong law, strong and robust people coming into law enforcement. So thank you for that. All right, I will see you soon, john.

Speaker 2: 27:21

Great. Thank you so much for having me Great seeing you.