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am planning to go local if I do it... Fed is an idea but I imagine I'd have to relocate and I'm not ready for that yet. Local experience would be a plus if I ever choose to go that route (if I even choose to go the local route in the first place, that is).

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You do not necessarily have to relocate. A lot of agencies recruit locally for their field offices and you can stay there for your career. Others make you relocate every 2-5 years, depends. You would have to temporarily relocate during training though (3-6 mos.)

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According to what I've read, the MDPD is responsible for 2 million people and has about 3k officers. Dunno if that's considered large or not.


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MDPD is an excellent force, big enough to advance into, and have a lot of specialities. I have metseveral officers from there and all were pretty happy.