Johns Hopkins Police and secondary employment

A department that forbids the work

Johns Hopkins has its own sworn police department, created under Maryland law and operating on the Homewood, medical and Peabody campuses in Baltimore. Its secondary employment procedure was issued on 25 July 2024 and has not been revised since.

The procedure draws a line other agencies spend pages managing. It defines extra-duty employment as any secondary work where the use of law enforcement powers is anticipated or reasonably foreseeable — and then states that members are prohibited from engaging in it.

What remains permitted is off-duty employment that is not conditioned on the actual or potential use of police powers. So a Hopkins officer may hold a second job; they may not work a police job. Uniform, badge, jurisdiction and equipment are all barred from any secondary employment.

The ban goes further than details. Security-related employment of any kind is out — including, in the procedure's own words, working as a private security guard in any capacity. For an officer at most agencies, that is the entire off-duty market.

Why: the cover stops at the door

One paragraph explains the whole policy, and it is the bluntest statement of liability in this section.

Members engaging in secondary employment act as agents for their secondary employers. As such, liability protection, workers' compensation coverage and other civil protections provided during their normal employment are not available while working that job.

Set that against the other end of the range. Florida treats a deputy hurt while enforcing the law on a detail as working on duty. Clay County has the county commission carrying workers' compensation outright. Clark County in Washington defends its employees for acts within the scope of their duties whether on duty or off. Johns Hopkins takes the opposite position and is candid about it: you are the employer's agent, and you are on your own.

Given that, prohibiting police-powers work is the consistent answer rather than a harsh one. An officer with no cover should not be doing work that invites an arrest.

If a member is hurt doing secondary work, they must notify the Chief of Police immediately, and no later than 24 hours after the injury.

The hours, and the eight hours either side

The cap is stated as a combined total: no more than 16 hours of work in any 24-hour period, counting the secondary job and JHPD together, without approval from a lieutenant or above.

Around it sit rules about when the work may not happen at all. A member may not work secondary employment during scheduled JHPD hours unless on preapproved leave, and shifts cannot be moved to accommodate a second job without prior approval.

The sick-leave rule is unusually wide. A member may not engage in secondary employment or make arrangements for it while on sick leave — and that includes the eight-hour period before and after any secondary employment. Most agencies bar working a detail on a sick day; this one bars arranging it in the window either side.

Nobody new, and a short list for the top

Two groups are treated separately, at opposite ends of the department.

Members in entry-level training, comparative compliance, field training or their probationary period are prohibited from secondary employment altogether. New officers work one job.

Exempt members — captain and above — are limited to a fixed list: teaching for an accredited educational institution, teaching or training for other law enforcement agencies, writing books, articles or pamphlets, serving as a consultant, serving as an assessor for a law enforcement accrediting body, or non-law-enforcement work approved by the Chief.

It is a telling list. Everything on it trades on expertise rather than on the badge.

Approval expires, and can be withdrawn

A request goes through the chain of command 30 days before the work begins, on a form that includes a liability agreement. The member must describe the proposed work fully and with particularity, accounting for the duties involved — both routine and reasonably foreseeable.

Approval expires exactly one year from the date it was signed, and the member is responsible for starting the renewal at least 30 days before it lapses. Permission is not a permanent condition; it is an annual one.

It can also be revoked at any time when the work is judged not in the department's best interest, or on the basis of poor job performance or excessive use of disability or sick leave. Written notice with an explanation follows. A deputy chief is named as the point of coordination for all of it.

The prohibited list

Beyond the blanket ban on police-powers work, the procedure names what else is out:

Repossession, bill collecting, serving as a bail bondsman, or any work using police authority to collect money or goods. Security work of any kind. Anything that might require using departmental access to police information, files, criminal history or motor vehicle records. Serving civil process, private investigation, or assisting in a civil action or a defense matter. Sales work in which the member divulges their JHPD association to make the sale. And work for any firm not properly registered or licensed as the law requires.

The Chief may additionally bar a member from a specific location or specific tasks.

What this page cannot tell you

There are no rates here, no minimum hours, no coordinator and no scheduling system — because there are no details to schedule. That absence is the page.

The department is also very new and still growing. It had 12 sworn officers in February 2025, was adding 20 to 30 more that year, and is capped by the university's own strategy at 100. So the policy above governs a small force whose shape is still settling.

For an officer weighing agencies, this is the clearest possible case of a rule that decides how a month can be built. At most departments the question is which detail to take. Here, off-duty income has to come from outside policing altogether.

Common questions

Can a Johns Hopkins officer work details?

No. Extra-duty work is prohibited outright — no details, no security jobs. It is the only agency in this section that closes the category entirely.

How many hours can an officer work in a day?

Sixteen combined in any twenty-four.

Is there liability cover for outside work?

None is provided, which follows from the work not being permitted in the first place.