Police hiring across U.S. shows signs of recovery
Survey finds first increase since damage done by COVID and the George Floyd case
— Police departments Philadelphia across the United States are reporting an increase in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to a historic exodus of officers, a survey shows.
More sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any one of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall 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 heightened scrutiny of law enforcement.
As more and more officers left, many of the departments had to redeploy stretched resources by shifting officers away from investigative work or quality of life issues such as abandoned vehicles or noise violations to handle increases in crime and, in some cases, the shortages meant slower response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, police officials say.
“I just think that the past four years have been particularly challenging for American policing,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, a nonprofit policing think tank based in Washington, D.C. “And our survey shows we’re finally starting to turn a corner.”
Individual departments are turning that corner at different rates, however, according to Wexler, who noted many are still struggling to attract and keep officers.
As a whole, the profession “isn’t out of the woods yet,” he said.
The Associated Press left phone and email messages with several unions and police departments to ask about increased hiring.
The survey shows that while small and medium departments had more sworn officers than they did in January 2020, large departments are still more than 5% below their staffing levels from that time, even with a yearover-year increase from 2022 to 2023.
The survey also showed smaller departments with fewer than 50 officers are still struggling with a higher rate of resignations and retirements.
The survey asked only for numbers, Wexler said, so it’s hard to say whether those officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession altogether. He also said smaller departments, which account for 80% of agencies nationwide, were underrepresented in the responses PERF received.