Over the past year or so, many agencies, organizations, fields, and businesses have experienced great difficulty reaching, recruiting, and retaining employees. The criminal justice field, particularly law enforcement, is not immune to this trend. However, how much of this trend is recent and a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and how much is something that has existed or would have existed regardless? First, let's learn more about the problem. Then, we'll explore the process through my own experiences during the reaching and recruitment process. Finally, let's look at some of the challenges that uniquely affect law enforcement as well as general obstacles.
Recruitment Down, Officers Down
Short staffing can be related to low recruitment but also low retention. According to a survey conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP] in 2019, 78% of agencies indicated that they were having difficulty in their efforts to recruit qualified candidates. Now, you may read that statistic and say that it is just a matter of qualifications. However, also discovered in that survey, 65% of agencies reported that they were simply having too few candidates applying (IACP, 2019). Officers are retiring at higher rates too. Philadelphia Police Department reported that this year, 79 officers applied to a program that indicates that they will be retiring within 4 years, compared to just 13 last year (Kaplan & Flock, 2021).
What does this mean for law enforcement agencies? The Lancaster City Bureau of Police, in south central Pennsylvania, reported that they are understaffed by seven officers (budgeted for 145 officers) (Munoz & Abad, 2021). Philadelphia Police Department, an agency that is budgeted for 6,380 officers, only has 6,112, which translates to over 260 vacancies (Kaplan & Flock, 2021).
[Image retrieved from lancasterpolice.com]
As with any workplace, short-staffing impacts the ability of the agency to achieve its goals and deliver its intended services. Products do not get on shelves if we do not have enough truck drivers to get the items to stores. Similarly, not enough police officers means either a reduction in the quantity of calls the agency can respond to or, arguably, a reduction in quality of the responses provided. To the latter point, overworking can mean underperforming. According to a 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review by Sarah Green Carmichael, working too hard is not only bad, but may actually hurt output in both amount of work and quality of work. When police departments are understaffed, officers may need to work more shifts, more hours, and more calls. In a field such as law enforcement, the impacts of reduced output in quantity and quality can have fatal results for both the officers and the communities they work within.
Reaching & Recruiting Potential Officers: My Experiences
In 2015, I was finishing up my undergraduate degree in Psychology. I was minoring in sociology, with a focus on criminal justice. As part of the requirements for the minor, I completed two internships, one of which was with the university's police department. I am a firm believer that internships are about learning if a career path is a good or bad fit for you. I had powerful and positive experiences with the officers that I worked alongside as an intern. During this time, I was also a Resident Assistant, so I would see officers responding to calls within the residence halls. The vast majority of these experiences were also positive, however, a few were not. I chose not to view those negative experiences as the rule, but rather, the exception. I viewed them as guidance on how I could one day be an honorable officer, by avoiding the practices that fostered those negative feelings for me. As an RA, I saw officers respond to all different issues, from substance misuse and uncooperative persons to homicide. Throughout it all, I had respect for the officers I interacted with. My intern mentors were role models. I knew that law enforcement was a career path that was worth my future exploration.
Upon graduating from the university, I decided that I would continue my education before exploring career options. I went on to graduate school, and two more criminal justice field placements, one at a county prosecutor's office and another at ATF. The county prosecutor's officer placement offered another positive experience in working with law enforcement officers. I worked closely with a detective, investigating fraud and financial cases. I was further sold on the law enforcement field, and now narrowed that becoming a detective would be another career goal of mine.
After completing graduate school, I was fortunate to quickly find a job at a victim services agency. In my role as a victim advocate, I constantly worked with law enforcement officers across the county. I always enjoyed hearing how they approached their job and the cases they handled. In a case involving over 50 victims of financial fraud, I collaborated with the case's lead detective to ensure that he had everything he needed to successfully investigate and bring justice to the victims. Although it was hard to see the impact this case had on each and everyone of the victims, I found it enormously rewarding to provide assistance. Another affirmation of my desire to become a detective.
In mid-2018, I realized that if in my next role I was to become an officer, I needed to begin to prepare for the qualification testing. After completing my necessary paperwork and getting the all-clear from a doctor, I applied to a testing consortium in Lancaster County. A consortium is an opportunity for you to take one test and it be received at multiple agencies, rather than testing for each individual agency. The test consisted of two main parts. The first was the physical qualifications/readiness test, followed by the written test. For this consortium, one would take the physical component first followed by the written.
I began physically training for the test approximately 6 months prior to the test date. I knew I would be required to perform a minimum of 40 sit-ups, 30 pushups, run 1.5 miles in under 12 minutes, and jump at least 16 inches off the ground. Therefore, performing sit-ups, pushups, and running became a daily routine.
The day of my test it was 50 degrees and raining. After months of training in the hot and dry conditions, I was performing in the cold and damp conditions. Yes, the test was outside. I successfully completed the jump requirement on my 2nd try. Unfortunately, at this point, my body was shivering. I began my sit-ups, but my muscles were not used to these conditions, and I cramped at sit up number 33, which resulted in me dropping my back to the ground. This is an automatic failure of the test, which results in disqualification from performing the rest of the required tests. Ultimately, I was going home. I remember getting in my car, turning on the heat, and changing my shirt so that I could drive home at least somewhat comfortably.
Although not the best experience, I was determined to try again. This time, I applied to a different county's consortium test, in which the written test preceded the physical one. I took the written test promptly at 9:00 am on a Saturday morning in January. After approximately 2 hours, I was finished with the testing. The test consisted of math, logic, and comprehension questions. Yes, I had to figure out how much the total value of items stolen from a residence equated to. Just three days later, I received notice that I had passed the exam. This meant I was to schedule an interview for the oral exam component. I should note that during this time, I was also going through the interview process at two probation departments. Prior to my oral exam date, I received a job offer for a juvenile probation officer position. Therefore, I decided not to continue in the testing process.
[Image of my voluntary TASER exposure]
The probation department I worked for approached juvenile justice with components of policing. Officers in this department were trained in the use of several tools (ex., firearms, TASER, OC Spray, handcuffs). We were provided with bulletproof vests. I completed training on the TASER within my second month on the job (yes, this involved me getting being voluntarily exposed to a TASER deployment). Let's just say that five seconds of complete immobility feels longer than it sounds and having a fellow officer remove two TASER probes from your back and backside is not the typical workplace bonding experience. Several weeks later, I began to complete both firearm and self-defense training. In short, I quickly identified that these requirements, coupled with other factors, meant that this was not the exact type of work I was looking for. After a few more months, I left my position and decided that my role in the criminal justice field was elsewhere.
Fast Forward to Now
Why do I tell this story? I shared this not to sway people one way or the other about the field of law enforcement. I shared this to highlight the long, arduous process that ANY recruitment can be. I shared this to provide the perspective of someone going through the recruitment process.
My role now has shifted from becoming a law enforcement officer to someone who studies the law enforcement field. I am currently a doctoral student, and have spent time studying prevention-related components of the field of law enforcement, such as use-of-force, police suicide, and interactions with persons of different demographics. I seek to learn from those carrying out the job and preparing others to do the job. I seek to process that information and incorporate my knowledge to share it back out.
[Image of a literature review I published in March 2021]
Challenges of Recruitment and Retention
Besides the personal challenges I highlighted above, law enforcement faces both unique and common obstacles to recruiting and retention of employees. These obstacles pre-date COVID-19, but may have been worsened or highlighted as a result.
Image of the Field
Officers work in the public eye. With body cameras, security cameras on every corner, and people carrying cellphones, more than ever can actions of a police officer be widely distributed and memorialized (for better or or worse). The news stations, social media, and newspapers can all bring attention to the actions of a few but give false illusion that they are of the many. If potential recruits view the profession as too dangerous, unscrupulous, or not well-received by the community, they may be deterred from applying.
Arrest in Pay
Although not unique to law enforcement, compensation is often a consideration for going into a field as well as staying in a field. If law enforcement agencies are not able to provide fair and competitive compensation (and benefits), some may choose to seek out other employment to meet their financial needs. Policing is a 24/7/365 job, and people expect that that the high demands of the job will be appropriately compensated. Pay while going through the training process is also key, because if you aren't able to work elsewhere while attending an academy, your bills and expenses still need to be covered somehow.
Lengthy Training Process
I highlighted in my own anecdote the long and difficult process to just get to the training phase of the job. Police academies are months in length. Field training requirements once on the job are also months in length. Mayor Sorace of Lancaster City recently stated when discussing the recruitment process of officers "we're talking about two years" before an officer is considered fully trained (Munoz & Abad, 2021). I am not arguing that training length should be reduced, but it can certainly be intimidating to know that from the day you begin the process to the day you complete the necessary training, two years will pass.
Work-Life Balance
As stated, policing is a 24/7/365 job. That means that balancing the demands that work places on an officer with their personal and social lives may be even more difficult. There has been a movement to reframe work-life balance into work-life integration because of the weight that balancing places on an individual (Crosby, 2021). However, as with any new movement/initiative, these changes may not be widely made or available yet in any field (including law enforcement).
Fuel & Friction to the Job
In a recent episode of the podcast Hidden Brain, Loren Nordgren discussed the concepts of fuel and friction as they relate to the workplace (Vedantam, 2021). Fuel is anything that attempts to improve a product, a service, or practice by adding something (ex., provide gift cards to employees as a reward for a job well-done). Friction is anything that impedes or creates a barrier to effective work (ex., no childcare for employees so there is high absenteeism). These concepts arguably apply to the field of law enforcement with regard to both retention and recruitment. If the field only focuses on creating more fuel (ex., showing the value of joining the field) rather than reducing the friction (ex., making it easier to apply for the job), retention and recruitment may be negatively impacted.
Staying in the Field
Lindsay Pollak highlights in her book The Remix (2019) how the act of staying in a single job at one location is a endangered and diminishing trend. In fact, she stated how people of all generations are remaining at their jobs for shorter stints of time. For example, the median time that men ages 45-54 were in their job in 1983 was 12.8 years, while in 2017 it was 8.4 years. The median number of years people of all ages stayed in their job in 2018 was 4.2 years. If this trend is true in law enforcement, long-term retention of officers may be difficult.
The Future of the Field
My hope is that recruitment and retention rates will improve for the law enforcement field. It probably won't be an easy or simple fix but our police and our communities are worth the effort.
References
Crosby, K. (Host). (2021, Oct 12). Work-life integration. [Audio podcast episode]. In The Behaviorist. Work Wisdom, LLC. https://www.workwisdomllc.com/productions.
Green Carmichael, S. (2015, Aug. 19). The research is clear: Long hours backfire for people and for companies. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies.
International Association of Chiefs of Police. (2019). The state of recruitment: A crisis for law enforcement. https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/239416_IACP_RecruitmentBR_HR_0.pdf
Kaplan, T., & Flock, J. (2021, May 03). Police departments understaffed in major cities amid rise in crime. Fox Business. https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/police-departments-understaffed-in-major-cities-amid-rise-in-crime
Munoz, B., & Abad, D. (2021, Sept. 28). AG Shapiro discusses police recruitment challenges with Lancaster County community leaders. ABC27 News. https://www.abc27.com/news/local/lancaster/ag-shapiro-to-discuss-police-recruitment-challenges-with-lancaster-county-community-leaders/.
Pollak, L. (2019). The remix : How to lead and succeed in the multigenerational workplace (First). HarperBusiness.
Vedantam, S. (Host). (2021, Nov 1). Work 2.0: The obstacles you don't see. [Audio podcast episode]. In Hidden Brain. Hidden Brain Media.