Police agencies say few want job

The San Francisco Police Department is down more than 600 officers, almost 30% of its allotment. Phoenix needs about 500 more officers to be fully staffed. The D.C. police force is smaller than it has been in 50 years, despite gun violence and carjackings, as officers leave faster than they can be replaced.

Police departments across the country are struggling to fill their ranks, creating what many current and former officials say is a staffing emergency.

They cite an exodus of veteran officers amid new police accountability measures that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd, increased hostility from the communities they police, and criminal justice laws that seek to reduce the number of people in jail.

Advocates for police reform see the moment as an opportunity to hire a new generation of officers and reimagine policing. But as agencies seek fresh recruits, they are getting fewer qualified applicants than in past years — leading some to make the risky move of lowering the bar for hiring to fill their ranks.

“We’re having to really, really work hard to fill what we have,” said Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Ill., whose department is short more than 300 sworn officers. “And we’re still not filling at the rate that we would want.”

Cook County’s 5,000-inmate jail can’t afford to cut corners for safety reasons, so the patrol division runs understaffed, Dart said in an interview. Complicating matters, smaller police departments in the county’s villages and towns are shorthanded also, and have asked Dart’s agency to step in.

That doesn’t bode well for the future of policing, said Christy E. Lopez, a Georgetown Law professor who worked in the civil rights division at the Justice Department from 2010 to 2017, helping negotiate court-approved improvement plans for departments marred by misconduct.

Lopez said the Justice Department rarely emphasized hiring while advising departments. Lofty staffing goals can lead to lowered academy standards, she said, and promote a culture that values retention over accountability.

“You really want to avoid putting the department under pressure to get people on the street,” Lopez said. “Leadership becomes so worried about people leaving and ‘officer morale’ that you don’t want to do anything that upsets them, things like disciplining people. And that has disastrous consequences.”