Political Science

General introduction
Mandatory retirement age refers to the age at which a person has to stop employment completely (or decides to leave the labour force if she he is unemployed) if he is holding a particular type of job. Although mandatory retirement has been abolished in the U.S there are some types of jobs that fall under the purview of mandatory retirement laws. Most people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits although some are forced to retire when physical conditions dont allow the person to work anymore (maybe due to illness or accidents).In many countries the idea of retirement is very recent having being introduced in the 19th and 20th centuries. German was the first country to introduce retirement in the 1880s (Bamber, 2002).

Previously people used to work till death due to low life expectancy and lack of pension schemes but nowadays most developed countries have systems to provide pensions on retirement in old age. Retirement age varies from country to country but it generally ranges between 55 and 70 years. Many organizations today are faced with an aging work force which represents both an opportunity and a challenge to them. It represents an opportunity in a sense that the organization can draw upon this growing resource to achieve their goals and strategies. On the other hand, an aging work force poses a challenge because its effective utilization may require development of appropriate human policies including retirement policies (Naresh, 1998).

Description Mandatory Retirement Age for Police Officers
This essay will mainly and specifically explore in details the mandatory retirement age of police officers in the United States of America. The major problem being addressed here is that once they attain a certain age, the police officers have to forcefully quit from being employed. The people affected here are the policemen and their families. Its fundamental effect on them is psychological as they think that their retirement age is not sufficient. The mandatory requirement age for police officers in the United States is 60 although the police are advocating that it should be changed to 65.Pressure for this change has also come from serving officers approaching 60 who are complaining of being forced to retire. In actual sense, no one should be forced to retire from work at any given time because most of these people are the breadwinners in their families and are being solely depended on by their families. Therefore early retirement from work may mean that they will start struggling for the upkeep of their families. In response, the relevant authorities are completing plans to allow police forces to recruit both men and women upto the age of 65 though currently the maximum age for recruits is 55 and the compulsory retirement age is 65.Although most police forces are upto strength, chief constables are facing the prospect of a quarter of all serving officers retiring in the next five years (Bamber, 2002)

There are two types of retirements mandatory and flexible retirements and the one in use in the United States police force is mandatory retirement. In most western socities, individual rights, needs and preferences have become increasingly committed to democratic principles of equality and freedom. Therefore at work places, these principles imply that employment decisions that affect individuals ought to be made without any regards to their personal and demographic characteristics. Instead these decisions are supposed to be based on work related criteria like bona fide occupational requirements and performance.Therefore, it can be argued out that mandatory retirement, by singling out age rather than individual productivity or competence is contrary to the principles of equality that our society is embracing (Naresh, 1998). Retirement is supposed to be a wonderful experience in the life of employees who have spent many years working and contributing to the society in which they live and the same applies to policemen. However to many people it turns out to be confusing, unsettling and downright depressing especially if someone doesnt know what to expect or if it comes at a time that one has not planned enough on how to handle life after quitting employment. (Belcher, 1999).Therefore its of great importance that employees prepare adequately to ensure that their retirement years become full of life and joy just as the years spent pursuing their careers.

Description Effects of Mandatory Retirement
Policemen in the United States, just like other employees experience the following effects due to mandatory retirement One of the most profound effects is mental anguish which they may feel unexpectedly due to the sudden change from working full time and chasing their career goals to the challenge of facing dark days full of unknown tasks and expectations. Therefore they end up feeling totally depressed, confused and misunderstood. Defiance against the routine they have followed for many years is also one of the first things that policemen may develop upon forced retirement. This may involve waking up late in the morning, staying in pajamas all day, watching bad daytime TV and staying up late at night. The policemen will definitely develop stress because life change of any kind usually causes some stress and retirement is no different many seniors report feeling stress and depression about the lack of direction for their lives upon retirement .Many tend to have thoughts of what will transpire in the next life after employment and how to acquire the next resources when their pensions are depleted. When it comes to retirement, health of employees either improves or deteriorates depending on how the retirees feel about the situation. In the case of policemen in the United States who feel that the mandatory retirement age is not appropriate, their health will definitely be affected in a negative way .Some of them will find their health fading away so fast as a result of their mental anguish over retirement (Belcher, 1999).

Research in the Issue of Mandatory Retirement for Police Officers
Research has shown that complete retirement leads to a 5-16 increase in difficulties in mobility and daily activities, 5-6 increase in illness conditions, 6-9 decline in mental health, over an average post retirement period of six years. These adverse health effects can be mitigated if an individual is married and has social support because heshe will not be lonely hence there will be a lot of emotional support from family members. Continual engagement in physical activities post retirement or working part time in other areas can also be of great help to a retiree because it will keep the person busy and shift the minds away from the main problem that is at hand and in the process there will be some kind of recovery from stress(Dhaval,2006).

The police pension scheme as it stands today came into force in the year 2006.This means that initially, policemen were forced to retire with no benefits. This must have been a very devastating situation especially for those who had no ability to find ways into other careers or who could not find any other means as a source of income. The arrangements for payment of pension are based on the final salary of the police who have to contribute 9.5 of their salary every month. Therefore upon retirement, their pension is usually a maximum of 50 of the final salary each year and to add to that, there is also a fixed lumpsum of a magnitude of 400 of the pension.Curently the maximum pension for a police officer is after 35 years of service and the rate at which the final pension is accrued is 170th of the final salary for each year of service in the police force. Normally these pensions can be paid to another person even one who is not a marriage or civil partner in some circumstances. Due to natural circumstances, not all police officers can make it to retirement. Some of them may die in accidents, due to diseases or even while carrying out their normal work duties. If this happens then the police officer would still be able to receive pension but it will be based upon the length of service though it will be paid earlier (Redding, 2000).

As it is required that every employee in the United States have to pay taxes to the government, not even the police force can escape. The pension contributions can be made free of tax upto a certain level after which these contributions will be taxed and the retirement benefits paid are also taxable. By paying taxes, the United States government gains money that is used for the benefit of its citizens. For example the money paid as taxes is used by the government to improve infrastructure (like roads), building and improvement of public facilities like hospitals and schools, promote small business owners to make them succeed because entrepreneurship is what makes the country going. In addition tax is used to facilitate disaster recovery and control like hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attack. The police pension and retirement policy is generally considered to be generous although there is certainly a lot of work to be done to make it perfect (Redding, 2000).

There are assumptions held by police that officers die soon after leaving their careers. These findings are derived from an analysis on 732 Illinois State Police officers who have retired from the agency since 1957 and there is similar information available from Arizona, Kentucky and Ohio state patrols. Due to scarcity of research on this subject, reasons for these findings are not clearly spelt out. The average police officer dies within five years after retirement and is reportedly said to have a life expectancy of twelve years less than that of other people. This fact is well known within police departments and though it does not have supporting evidence, it reflects a commonly held assumption among police officers although the Los Angeles city police and Massachusetts state police have also provided data that appears to contradict these assumptions. Their data suggests that Illinois State Police officers have as long, if not longer life expectancy as the population as a whole. The expected shorter life for police officers may be assumed to arise from the type of work they perform which includes threats, boredom and conflicting expectations from society. Threats can be from criminals who are being hunted down who when they reach a point of being overwhelmed by the police, they end up killing them. This is one illustration as to why police work is considered so risky. Each and every day, there are cases of policemen being killed in efforts to maintain law and order or cases where they have to deal with terrorists like in the 911 incidence in the United States. With all these, the life of police officers is sometimes shortened by circumstances in their work environments hence leading to a shorter life expectancy compared to other employees (Raub, 1987).

Police are also said to have a higher than normal rates of divorce and suicides. High divorce rates can be attributed to the fact that most of the times, policemen are always out for duties and at times they have to go to places far from their families to attend to duties making them out of reach from their families. In the process, wives and children are left back at their homes for so long and when it exceeds the tolerance of the involved parties, conflicts arise which mostly lead to separation and divorce. In most cases the issue of unfaithfulness comes up and it breaks families which may in turn tempt couples to commit suicide due to stress (Raub, 1987).

Other peoples views
Much as mandatory retirement age is considered to be a set back in the police force, other people think that banning it from being implemented will have several effects as discussed below. It is said that forbidding mandatory retirement age from fulfilling the mutually agreed functions will reduce jobs and promotion opportunities in the police force. This is because the older or senior policemen will still remain in their higher ranks and those who serve below them will not have any chances of being promoted to better positions. Working in the same capacity for so many years is known to be demotivating hence the quality of work from the policemen will not be of good quality (Gunderson, 2008).Succession planning on the part of government will become more difficult in the sense that if the older policemen continue to stay in the work force then there will be no one willing to be replaced or substituted yet we know that in any given organization, there must be changes including recruiting new people who come with new ideas and energy to improve the quality of work done. It will also be difficult to know when to bring in new recruits for certain positions because there will be no definite time when the incumbent will leave.

Moreover, in absence of mandatory retirement, policemen in the United States of America might become less prepared for retirement making the public and private pensions to dissipate. The government of the United States may begin to think that if the policemen can continue working past the retirement age, then there would be no need for a pension plan for them. Pension plans may start being used strategically as a substitute for mandatory retirement in order to get policemen to leave the work force voluntarily. Furthermore, its abit difficult and stringent to monitor and evaluate older employees in any given organization and as a result the rate of dismissals will be higher. The same issue will affect the police work force if mandatory retirement age is banned hence it can be retained for the good of the policemen in a sense that it would be better for them to work knowing that at a certain age they have to quit than have all the years to work yet risk losing their jobs anytime due to dismissals. Since there will be so many older people in the police force, the only thing that will be used as a basis of eliminating some of them will be the mistakes they commit hence it will be so easy for so many of them to lose their jobs(Gunderson, 2008).

Considering the labour force participation rate in the United States of America, there was a decline in the age of retirement before the 1980s but starting in the late 1980s people stopped retiring earlier. Although there is no evidence that there is a casual relationship between banning mandatory retirement age and the one at which people retire, the statistics are pretty coincidental which shows that there will be actually little effect on the actual retirement age.However, it is debatable that fewer people may continue working if mandatory retirement is banned in the police force because they will already have their retirement plans (Gunderson, 2008).

If mandatory retirement age for policemen is banned, they may begin to retire at different ages or whenever they feel they want to quit working. Some of these decisions will be made abruptly without even having planned for the future hence such people will be bound to suffer economically and emotionally when they start experiencing hardships as a result of the freedom to choose when they want to retire. This is one of the reasons why mandatory retirement age is good because it forces people to plan for their life after retirement (Gunderson, 2008).

Recommendations
Based on the way policemen perceive their mandatory retirement age, I would recommend the following The relevant authorities responsible or those dealing with issues regarding retirement and pensions for police officers in the United States should seriously look into changing this retirement age to around 65-70 years. This is because from the discussion laid above most of these officers are not contented with what is on ground for them. They feel they are being forced to quit working when they can still do well and contribute perfectly to the police force. Moreover at the age of 60(the current mandatory requirement age), most policemen feel that they are still physically fit and
can still perform as per the requirement of the police force so they should be given the chance to prove themselves.

I also recommend that the government of the United States creates other job opportunities for police retirees so that after leaving their careers, retired policemen can be able to earn a living elsewhere apart from waiting and depending on their pension money which may not be able to sustain them sufficiently. By so doing, the effect of retiring will not be felt because there will be transition from their career jobs to yet other jobs which will keep them busy. On the other hand, these recommendations may not be so easy to implement because of some barriers which can be discussed as follows the job of police officers is not an easy one and this brings in the time factor. If these recommendations can be carried out, then it means that the time frame should be very short so that policemen can feel the change within the shortest time possible. It is well known that changing anything within a given work force or organization is not quite easy because it involves so many people with so many ideas and they have to discuss and come to agreement before anything is implemented. So time becomes the major limiting factor here.

Summary Statement
In summary, this essay was exploring the topic Mandatory retirement age for police officers. Its the age at which police officers have to stop working and currently in the United States of America, the age is 60. The policemen feel that the age is not adequate for them and want it pushed to 65 years. This problem mainly affects the policemen directly and their families indirectly. There are several effects of mandatory retirement age which can be generalized as follows confusion, restleness, anguish, stress and several health effects. Along with these, other issues about the policemen in the United States also came up for example research shows that the rate of divorce and suicide among them is higher compared to other employees in different categories.

In addition, their life expectancy is shorter compared to other people in different careers As a result, I have recommended that the relevant authorities in the United States should look into changing the mandatory retirement age of police officers as a means of motivating them in their careers.Moreover, other job opportunities should be set aside for those who retire to earn a living out of it other than just depending on the pension. Other peoples views on the effects of banning mandatory retirement age of policemen in the United States have also been discussed.

In Conclusion, I think the police in the United States of America just like any category of employees should be considered and granted their wishes because without it, there will be no motivation in the police work force bearing in mind that its them who take charge of the country in matters that pertain to maintaining law and order among other functions.