“When you pay your deputies between $12.55 and $15.09 an hour the quality of your applicant pool likely isn’t that great to begin with.”
That is exactly right. So what you end up with are applicants who psychologically WANT the authority to screw with the public and get a kick out of it.
I have personally met and got to know at least 20 of these characters in my lifetime.
And I don’t know when the last time you checked, but they are making much more than that now.
Police officer pay varies wildly in my neck of the woods. The big city cops make very good money. And full-time deputy sheriffs can do the same.
But small-town cops can make very little. And part-timers make even less. A guy I know worked part-time for a small police force near me. He made a dollar over minimum wage ((not kidding) with no benefits. He hung on for a couple years, hoping to be hired on full-time. Eventually he quit.
Not in rural counties they're not.