PHILADELPHIA — Police departments across the United States are reporting a surge in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 killing of George Floyd led to a historic exodus of officers, a survey shows.
More sworn police officers were hired in 2023 than in any of the previous four years, and fewer officers resigned or retired, according to the 214 law enforcement agencies that responded to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF.
Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers spurred nationwide protests against police brutality and intensified scrutiny of law enforcement.
As more and more officers left, many of the departments had to redeploy already depleted resources, moving officers away from investigative work or quality-of-life issues such as abandoned vehicles or noise violations, to deal with the rise in crime. and in some cases, shortages have meant slowing response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, law enforcement officials say.
“I think the last four years have been particularly challenging for American policing,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit policing think tank. “And our research shows that we are finally starting to turn a corner.”
However, individual departments are coping at different rates, according to Wexler, who noted that many are still struggling to attract and retain officers.
Overall, the profession is “not out of the woods yet,” he said.
The Associated Press left phone and email messages with several unions and police departments to ask about the hiring increase.
The research shows that while small and medium-sized departments had more sworn employees than in January 2020, large departments are still more than 5% below their staffing levels at that time, even with an annual increase from 2022 to 2023.
The research also showed that smaller departments with fewer than 50 employees still face a higher rate of layoffs and retirements.
The survey only asked for numbers, Wexler said, so it’s difficult to say whether these officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession entirely. He also said that smaller departments, which represent 80% of agencies nationwide, were underrepresented in the responses PERF received.
Many larger departments have raised officer salaries or started offering incentives such as signing bonuses for experienced officers who want to transfer, something smaller departments can’t really compete with. At least a dozen smaller departments have been disbanded, leaving the municipalities they once served dependent on state or county help for policing.
But even some of the highest-paid large departments are still struggling to land new hires.
“I don’t think it’s all about money. I think it has to do with how people perceive their work and feel like they will be supported,” Wexler said. “There are departments on the West Coast that pay six figures but still face major hiring challenges.”
In addition to salaries and bonuses, many agencies are reexamining their application requirements and hiring processes.
Wexler believes some of these changes make sense, including allowing visible tattoos, reassessing the importance of past financial issues and processing background checks on candidates more quickly. But he warned that PERF does not support lowering training or candidate standards.
Maria “Maki” Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says departments have been too focused on the number of officers. She worries that some are lowering educational requirements and other standards to boost numbers, rather than trying to find the best people to police their communities.
“Policing is a real profession that requires more skills and more education than people can understand,” she said. “It’s not about tattoos or running a mile in 15 minutes. It’s really more about emotional intelligence, maturity and making split-second decisions that don’t use lethal force.”
Haberfeld also warned that any personnel gains made through incentives could easily be wiped out, especially as officers, including some in riot gear, have been seen breaking up protests against the war between Israel and Hamas at universities across the country.
“In policing, it takes decades to move forward and a split second for public attitudes to deteriorate,” she said.
PERF’s research showed a more than 20% drop in layoffs overall, from a high of nearly 6,500 in 2022 to fewer than 5,100 in 2023. However, they are still above early pandemic levels in 2020, when more than 4,000 officers resigned. in all responding departments.
As with hiring increases, the rate of decrease in renovations tended to depend on the size of departments. There were fewer reforms in 2023 than in 2019 in large departments, slightly more reforms in medium departments and high reforms in small departments. The survey found a sharp drop in layoffs at large agencies with 250 or more employees and at medium-sized agencies with between 50 and 249 employees.
In addition to salary and benefit increases, the improvement in retention can be partially attributed to a shift in how some public employees view their public safety departments, Wexler says.
“We have gone from public discourse about defunding the police just a few years ago to public servants waking up to the fact that their workforce is leaving,” he said. “I don’t think there is any doubt that there has been a sea change among political leaders.”
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