Retirements and resignations have continued to push numbers down at police force around the U.S., as hiring numbers continue to stall, according to the Police Executive Research Foundation (PERF).
The decrease in police recruits has forced some law enforcement agencies to change entry level qualifications, such as easing restrictions based on former drug use and reducing educational qualifications, PERF reported in its annual survey.
The survey shows that staffing levels have dropped by nearly 3.50 percent over the two-year period covering 2020 and 2021.
“These negative changes almost certainly were caused largely by the extreme stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to policing in 2020 and 2021, and by the thousands of protests and demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which in many cases involved acts of violence and hostility toward police officers,” PERF said.
The new figures were based on responses to a survey sent to police agencies in the U.S. and Canada in January. Although just 184 agencies responded, they represented most of the large urban departments around the U.S., employing more than 130,000 officers.
From the responses, PERF said it detected some critical changes in hiring policy. Many admitted changing their hiring qualifications in response to the staffing crisis.
The most common change, reported by 13 agencies, was to remove restrictions disqualifying entrants because of prior marijuana use. Another two eased restrictions on prior use of other drugs, and seven agencies reduced their minimum education requirements.
Two agencies allowed older recruits to apply, and two others eased “tattoo restrictions.”
PERF said that “budget issues” in many cities were also a likely reason for hiring cuts.
“The COVID pandemic resulted in an economic crisis and revenue shortages for city governments,” PERF said, noting that police agencies in some cities faced “defunding” campaigns—though most of the impulse for defunding has disappeared as public concerns over rising crime have grown.
Police ranks are also experiencing a demographic shift, as many “boomer” officers are now retiring. Although the rate of retirement has ebbed slightly in 2021, there were nearly 24 percent more retirements than two years earlier.
But there has also been a sharp increase in resignations—over 40 percent more in 2021 than in the previous year.
PERF said the survey did not reflect how many of the resigning officers went to work for another agencies or how many left policing altogether. A 2018 PERF report found that approximately half of the sworn personnel who resigned accepted a job at another agency, and nearly one-quarter left the profession. (The remainder cited other reasons for leaving.)
But the survey also revealed that many police agencies now had a younger work force.
Respondents—most of them police chiefs or senior managers—said the change was generally welcome since it brought in officers who were more adept at using new technology. But “they also cited drawbacks, such as a loss of institutional knowledge, supervisors having less experience, and an increase in vehicle crashes with younger officers,” PERF said.
Others pointed out that new, younger officers appeared less interested in working overtime and night shifts than in the past.
PERF said the shifting trends in hiring offered some key lessons for solving “the staffing crisis of 2020-21.”
“Hopefully, the COVID pandemic will recede, and public sentiment about policing will shift , as many police agencies and their communities work together to identify and implement reform measures that have broad support,” PERF said.
Download the complete PERF survey here.
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March 11, 2022 at 09:00PM
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Slipping Police Numbers Drive Some Agencies to Ease Entry Qualifications: Survey - Crime Report
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