By Brandon Martin, Deepak Premkumar, and Mandi Acevedo

Law enforcement agencies have experienced hiring and retention challenges amid the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and changing views of the police. This report provides key trends and context for understanding officer staffing in California and highlights several obstacles for agencies moving forward.

Key Takeaways
Law enforcement agencies at the state, county, and local levels employ more than 77,000 individuals with arrest powers across California spending about $28 billion on policing. Research shows that hiring additional law enforcement officers reduces crime, especially violent crime. Yet agencies have experienced several challenges around officer recruitment and retention in recent years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainty, and societal changes.

In this report, we bring together several new and underused data sources to provide key trends and context for understanding officer staffing in California, highlighting several possible challenges for agencies moving forward

The number of officers has decreased since the pandemic. Despite small growth over the last two years, the statewide officer count (77,200) in 2024 is 3 percent less than it was in 2019 (79,600). California has 196 officers per 100,000 residents, down from a peak of 221 in 2008. → Officer demographics have shifted. Although officers are predominantly male, the share of female officers has risen over time, from 12.8 percent in 2005 to 15.3 percent in 2024. Looking at race/ethnicity, representation of white and Black officers has declined over the last two decades, while representation of Latino officers has increased significantly and representation of Asian officers has remained largely unchanged. Average officer age and tenure have stayed relatively stable. Recent research shows benefits to having more female, Latino, Black, older, and experienced officers. → Staffing trends differ based on agency size and type. While agencies of all sizes saw declines in staffing after the Great Recession, the post-pandemic drop was concentrated in large agencies with over 100 officers. In recent years, rural agencies have experienced more volatile changes in staffing than non-rural agencies. And over the last two decades, staffing levels have risen at sheriff’s departments while decreasing slightly at police departments. → Officer retention has declined. From 2016 to 2020, total separations—including resignations, retirements, and terminations—rose steadily at California law enforcement agencies, by about 11 percent.

Separations then went up more than 30 percent between 2020 and 2022, potentially influenced by factors like the pandemic and protests following the murder of George Floyd. → Average salaries have decreased slightly; agencies are increasing overtime pay. After adjusting for inflation, the average base salary for officers declined between 2011 and 2023, from $116,000 to $110,000, possibly due to more experienced officers leaving. Over this time, average overtime pay grew from $10,000 to over $25,000. Though rural and non-rural agencies had similar overtime pay in 2011, there was a large difference by 2023 ($16,000 rural, $28,000 non-rural). → Agency competition and pay are key challenges to recruitment and retention. Respondents in our survey say that location issues, like remoteness of agency as well as housing costs and availability, also play a role. When it comes to hiring, agencies report that unqualified applicants are an issue. About 30 percent of respondents indicate that limited staff capacity has led to shifts in services or response priorities, such as deprioritizing non-criminal medical calls.

By Dustin Richardson, Jeremy Barnum, Meagan Cahill

The police have a complex role in managing mass demonstrations, requiring them to balance competing priorities and obligations. On the one hand, they must uphold the fundamental right to free assembly and
expression guaranteed by the United States Constitution, while on the other hand, they must maintain safety and order. Although most mass demonstrations are peaceful, some can escalate into widespread civil
disturbances. The primary challenge for agencies, then, is to implement training, policies, and crowd management approaches that prepare officers to safely and effectively facilitate the vast majority of peaceful protests while also having plans and contingencies in place should property destruction or violence occur.
Too much focus on either outcome leaves agencies unprepared and can result in inappropriate responses that have unintended consequences

By Ross Coomber; Charles Lloyd; Kate Brown: and Laura Bainbridge

 In county lines, there has been a significant shift in policing approaches towards young people and vulnerable adults who are increasingly seen as victims of criminal exploitation, rather than simply as suspects or offenders. The extent to which vulnerable individuals are seen and processed as victims and safeguarded, or criminalized, varies enormously between and within police forces. This results in a policing and outcomes
postcode lottery with serious implications for procedural justice. Local area safeguarding partnerships also often lack robust baseline processes for those subject to criminal exploitation. There needs to be a national policing strategy on child and adult criminal exploitation to effectively address these issues within policing and local safeguarding.

Summary : This is the UK’s first national study of police responses to county lines drug distribution and related child and adult criminal exploitation. The study examined how the police identify and process young people and vulnerable adults involved in drug distribution in cross-border and local drug markets. The findings show that police forces are changing how they consider and process young people and vulnerable adults involved in drug markets. However, while they increasingly recognize vulnerability and investigate possible criminal
exploitation, policing practice varies significantly between and even within forces. The findings suggest that to help establish an appropriate minimum baseline safeguarding response, consistent across all forces, there needs to be more detailed national guidance, policy, and centralized oversight in this area.

By Michel Thill

This open access book offers the first full-length, empirical deep-dive into everyday policework in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the same time, its findings go well beyond the DRC and Africa, ultimately providing a new, startlingly nuanced theoretical framework for understanding what police practice and reform efforts tell us about states anywhere in the world. Following officers from the classroom to the station and the street, Michel Thill offers five narrative-driven chapters rich with historical detail and thick description that show how the police force, as an institution, struggles to coordinate practice with training, coercion with
persuasion and reconciliation, and the need to make ends meet with the duty to serve the public. By delving into the convoluted repercussions of police reform, Thill identifies the tensions that shape everyday police work, thereby offering new ways of thinking about police reform while offering practical guidance for practitioners and policymakers.

By Emmanuel C. Onyeozili, Biko Agozino, Augustine Agu, Patrick Ibe

In locating policing firmly within the Afrikan tradition, from earliest antiquity to the present, this book returns policing to the people in Afrikan communities. While its focus is on policing within Nigeria, theoretical insights and practical examples, these latter both positive and negative, from around the world are also deployed to illuminate a firm grasp of the evolution of police and policing from colonial times in what is now Nigeria.
The resulting text therefore makes a necessary and radical break with colonial and neocolonial policing in which the police are usually little more—if anything more—than an occupying force organized by Europeans who oppresses the mass of the people on behalf of these foreign masters and their local accomplices, who are junior partners in the exploitation of Afrika.

By Aaron Bielejewski

This Open-Access-book questions the relationship between institutionalized images and understandings of policing – the monolithic ideas common to most, if not all, Western law enforcement agencies – and contextual, situate, and local interactions where the human representatives of policing – street-level officers – come into contact with residents. The political and theoretical association of specific forms of “Western” policing with democratic society can be illustrated in the case of German integration: narratives of reform and essentially forging new democratic police agencies in the “new German states” stand at odds with much of the experience and statements of officers who continued to serve following (Re)Unification. Officers who present their works primarily in terms of their local responsibilities, expectations and more specifically to their unique and individual relationship and connection to their communities downplay the relevance of high-level policing policy. Based on a two-year ethnographic study of policing in a rural county in the German state of Brandenburg, this book explores the local nature of policing both in terms of how police officers imagine their communities to be and with reference to broader societal expectations and assumptions of what police, essentially, are, can effectively do, and should effectively do.

Edited by Kirsten Foot,
Elizabeth Shun-Ching Parks,
Marcel Van der Watt

As the crime of human trafficking/modern slavery is multifaceted, collaborating to counter it across sectors, disciplines, regions, and from local to international levels is widely understood to be of utmost importance. However, the processes of organizing and leading robust collaborations are complex and challenging, and to be sustainable, such processes must result in both positive outcomes for the collaborating partners and demonstrable progress toward countering human trafficking. Despite a growing body of published research on anti-trafficking collaboration, many aspects of it remain understudied. This Special Issue of Societies invites researchers and collaboration leaders in the anti-trafficking arena to share research findings and/or evidence-supported practices on how to catalyze and support collaborations to generate and sustain track records of constructive impacts.

By Geoff Pearson and Mike Rowe

This open access book analyses the utilisation, regulation and legitimacy of police powers. Drawing upon six-years of ethnographic research in two police forces in England, this book uncovers the importance of time and place, supervision and monitoring, local policies and law. Covering a period when the police were under intense scrutiny and subject to austerity measures, the authors contend that the concept of police culture does not help us understand police discretion. They argue that change is a dominant feature of policing
and identify fragmented responses to law and policy reform, varying between police stations, across different policing roles, and between senior and frontline ranks.

Edited by Georgios Leventakis and M. R. Haberfeld

Despite broad and often varied underlying definitions, a common theme throughout community and neighbourhood policing strategies establishes the need to target improvements in the relationship and level of engagement between the police and the communities they serve. Community policing approaches have long underpinned a desire to move away from reactive policing models towards those which establish a
more proactive philosophy, responsive to the wants and needs of the community. The near ubiquitous proliferation of smartphones and other ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) means they are often seen as a vector through which initiatives of all kinds can instil a culture of proactive engagement with their respective stakeholder communities. This paper builds upon existing research which suggests that technologies for crime prevention should be designed to support communications and problem-solving rather than used simply as a means to disseminate information, unpacking a number of the core concepts that are considered central to participation and effective engagement; social capital, public participation and social and digital inclusion. Moreover, examples of wider initiatives are comparatively discussed, not just those associated with community policing, which target the engagement of communities through the use of technology, and more specifically mobile applications, before reflecting on the empirical evidence and experiences gleaned through the EU H2020 funded ‘UNITY’ project, a project that sought to establish effective strategies for engagement between police and citizen communities.

OR:

Examines the societal implications of community-oriented policing. Explores possibility for improving police-community relations using technology. Presents innovative solutions for policing challenges

Edited by Gemma Davies and Helena Carrapico


This unique open access collection offers an in-depth understanding of UK-EU police and judicial cooperation post-Brexit, an under-explored field.

It considers the legal and political operation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and its implications for a wide number of policy areas. As well as critiquing its operation, contributors suggest reforms that would improve police and judicial cooperation between the UK and the EU.

This scholarly discussion is balanced against practical considerations, with short chapters setting out practitioners' perspectives on the TCA. It ends by reflecting on lessons that non-EU countries seeking cooperation with the EU might learn.

Edited By Anja Johansen, Genevieve Lennon, Hartmut Aden, Christian
Mouhanna, Marc Alain, Tobias Singelnstein

This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of Independent Police Complaints Bodies (IPCBs) in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. It explores the distinctive political, cultural, and institutional contexts shaping police accountability arrangements within each country, as well as the transnational dynamics behind the remarkable proliferation of IPCBs over the past three decades, assessing the prospects for future convergence around international standards. Drawing on findings from the international project ‘Police Accountability: Towards International Standards’, the book examines the inherent dilemmas and challenges in the everyday functioning and dynamics of IPCBs.

By Simon Egbert, Matthias Leese

This book explores how predictive policing transforms police work. Police departments around the world have started to use data-driven applications to produce crime forecasts and intervene into the future through targeted prevention measures. Based on three years of field research in Germany and Switzerland, this book provides a theoretically sophisticated and empirically detailed account of how the police produce and act upon criminal futures as part of their everyday work practices.

The authors argue that predictive policing must not be analyzed as an isolated technological artifact, but as part of a larger sociotechnical system that is embedded in organizational structures and occupational cultures. The book highlights how, for crime prediction software to come to matter and play a role in more
efficient and targeted police work, several translation processes are needed to align human and nonhuman actors across different divisions of police work.

Police work is a key function for the production and maintenance of public order, but it can also discriminate, exclude, and violate civil liberties and human rights. When criminal futures come into being in the form of algorithmically produced risk estimates, this can have wide-ranging consequences. Building on empirical findings, the book presents a number of practical recommendations for the prudent use of algorithmic analysis tools in police work that will speak to the protection of civil liberties and human rights as much as they will speak to the professional needs of police organizations.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, and cultural studies as well as to police practitioners and civil liberties advocates, in addition to all those who are interested in how to implement reasonable forms of data-driven policing

By Gregory Cote

It is widely accepted that modern policing first came into existence with a bill passed in 1829, establishing the Metropolitan London Police under British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel. It is Peel after all, who has been labeled the founder of modern policing, an English institution that inspired North American police. I argue that it was Jeremy Bentham who developed an early model of modern policing and whose work on applying his utilitarian philosophy to institutional reform directly influenced Peel’s innovation. I intend to show how Bentham and reformer Patrick Colquhoun established the first modern police department when they
collaborated in drafting the Thames River Police Bill adopted by Parliament in 1800, almost thirty years before Peel’s legislation. It is the Thames River Police created by Bentham and Colquhoun that is the world’s oldest, not the Metropolitan London Police introduced by Peel. John Stuart Mill once wrote that Bentham was a great subversive. And as the great subversive whose years of work on improving police was often done in secret and whose efforts were largely ignored, it is Bentham not Peel, who should be considered the single most important figure in the development of modern policing.

Edited by Scott Jacques and Philip Schofield

Jeremy Bentham’s ideas on punishment are famous. Every criminology student learns about Bentham, and every criminologist contends with him, as advocate or opponent. This discourse concerns his ideas about punishment, namely with respect to legislation and the panopticon. Yet, scholars and students are generally ignorant of Bentham’s ideas on police. Hitherto, these ideas have been largely unknowable. Now, thanks to UCL’s Bentham Project, these ideas are public. Jeremy Bentham on Police celebrates this achievement by exploring the story of Bentham’s writings on police and considering their relevance to the past, present and future of criminology. After Scott Jacques introduces the book, the Director of the Bentham Project, Philip Schofield, describes and explains how it works. Then Michael Quinn, who brought together Bentham’s writings on police, delves into the personal and socio-historical background in which they were created. An extract follows, representing the most (criminologically-)relevant passages from Bentham’s police writings. Finally, a rich variety of scholars offer their thoughts on what those writings mean for criminology. These contributions come from Anthony A. Braga, Ronald Clarke, David J. Cox, Stephen Douglas, Stephen Engelmann, G. Geltner, Joel F. Harrington, Jonathan Jacobs, Paul Knepper, Gloria Laycock, Gary T. Marx, Daniel S. Nagin, Graeme R. Newman, Pat O’Malley, Eric L. Piza, Kim Rossmo, Lucia Summers and Dean Wilson.

By Helena Machado and Rafaela Granja

Genetic Surveillance and Crime Control presents a new empirical and conceptual framework for understanding trends of genetic surveillance in different countries in Europe and in other jurisdictions around the world. The use of DNA or genome for state-level surveillance for crime governance is becoming the norm in democratic societies. In the post-DNA, contemporary modes of criminal identification are gradually changing through the increasing expansion of transnational sharing of DNA data, along with the development of highly controversial genetic technologies that pose acute challenges to privacy and generate fears of discrimination, racism and stigmatization. Some questions that guide this book are: How is genetic surveillance in the governance of crime intertwined with society, ethics, culture, and politics? What are the views and expectations of diverse stakeholders –scientists, police agencies, and non-governmental organizations? How can social sciences research about genetic surveillance accommodate socio-cultural and historical differences, and be sensitive to specificities of post-authoritarian societies in Europe?　 Taking an interdisciplinary approach focused on challenges to genetic privacy, human rights and citizenship in contemporary societies , this book will be of interest to students and scholars of social studies of science and technology, sociology, criminology, law and policing, international relations and forensic sciences.

By Michael Sanders, Kate Bancroftb, Susannah Humea, Oliver Chetwyndc and Paul Quintonca

We aim to test the impact of a new national curriculum for public and personal safety training (PPST) developed by the College ofPolicing, which aims to reduce the use of force by police. We con-duct a large-scale Stepped Wedge Pragmatic Controlled Trial with a single police force and 1843 participating police officers.Officers were assigned to be trained during a particular week of the year. We find statistically significant reductions in the use of force by police officers as a result of the training. These effects are a reduction of between 8.0% and 10.9% in the propensity to use force in a given week compared to the counterfactual. The Effect is accompanied by a significant reduction in the likelihood of injury to civilians, and no rise in the risk of harm to officers.We conclude that the PPST curriculum appears effective at reduc-ing use of force by police in a large scale, robust trial

By American Civil Liberties Union

This ACLU research report, Agents of Chaos and Cruelty, documents widespread civil rights violations carried out by immigration agents during the first year of President Trump’s second term. The report examines immigration enforcement incidents in eight states – representing a cross-section of the country and reflecting varying degrees of federal law enforcement presence and personnel surges – and found that over 400 of the more than 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents examined involved misconduct by immigration agents. The report ends with detailed recommendations urging policymakers to call for transformative change to our immigration system, in recognition that it is broken and dangerous to human rights.

BY JASON JOHNSON AND SEAN KENNEDY

LELDF RESEARCH BRIEF | AUGUST 2023

Consent decrees are a blunt instrument for enacting police reform. The approach has proven ill-suited at enacting effective change in law enforcement agencies. These coercive reforms face institutional resistance from departments and their personnel and fall victim to mission creep from the unaccountable lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats who oversee the design and later the implementation of the reforms. The situation worsened significantly as the Obama Administration increased the use of consent decrees, a policy resumed under the Biden Department of Justice. Often built on limited and flimsy evidence, the Justice Department’s allegations against police agencies put local jurisdictions in a near impossible position to contest civil rights violations findings. Additionally, the Justice Department frequently injects its policy preferences into the required remedies that do not reflect urgent or even necessary changes, but policy agenda of the Civil Rights Division and the White House. Subject jurisdictions are often compelled to accept settlements with unachievable compliance goals and required to spend vast sums to remedy problems outside the scope of the statutory requirements.

Consent decrees are not a quick, easy, or inexpensive fix. And this type of settlement can have consequences – higher crime, lower police morale, ballooning costs, drifting timelines, and dissatisfied residents. In many cases, consent decrees prove to be damaging boondoggles rather than bolstering effective and constitutional policing. Federal intervention for some agencies may still be necessary but less onerous and more effective tools exist for enacting necessary reforms. Those alternatives should be preferred where possible. The Justice Department’s interventions in law enforcement agencies should be precise in their
methods and practicable in their goals.

By Riya Parashar

The shared border between Mexico and the United States plays a significant role in facilitating drug production, trafficking, and consumption. Most illicit drugs destined for the United States are either produced
in Mexico or transit through it, making the region a critical hub in the global drug trade. This strategic position
has long attracted various criminal organizations that exploit the border's extensive and often difficult-to monitor terrain to transport narcotics. In recent years, the growing involvement of organized
criminal groups in drug trafficking has emerged as one of the most pressing public concerns along the Mexico–U.S. border.

These groups have become increasingly sophisticated, employing advanced smuggling techniques and
corrupting officials to maintain their operations. While the majority of drug-related violence remains concentrated within Mexico, it has raised serious concerns among U.S. policymakers about the potential
“spillover” of violence into American border communities, threatening regional stability and public safety. This research aims to analyze drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States and to examine its impact on Mexican society. The paper begins with an overview of the Mexico–U.S. border, highlighting its geographical and political significance as a major point of transit and control. It then traces the historical development of drug trafficking in Mexico, exploring how shifts in policy, enforcement, and criminal networks have shaped the current landscape.

Following this, the study provides an examination of the current dynamics of the drug trade, including major sources, trafficking routes, and the roles of different cartels. The analysis extends to the evolving landscape of violence and organized crime in Mexico, emphasizing the social and human costs borne by Mexican citizens, such as displacement, insecurity, and economic disruption. In addition, the research explores governmental initiatives aimed at curbing drug trafficking, assessing their effectiveness and limitations amid complex political and social challenges. Finally, it examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug trafficking networks, production, and distribution in Mexico, considering how global disruptions have contributed to a deeper understanding of the politics of drug trafficking in Mexico and its broader implications for regional security and bilateral relations. altered trafficking patterns and law enforcement responses. By addressing these dimensions, the paper seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the politics of drug trafficking in Mexico and its broader implications for regional security and bilateral relations.

By Greg Midgette and Meredith L. Gore

Illegal wildlife markets comprise a complex global economy generating criminal profits while harming biodiversity and livelihoods. The negative externalities from biodiversity loss, ecosystem destabilization, and zoonotic disease risk may be orders of magnitude larger than the multibillion dollar annual total market value. Despite decades of international policy attention, fundamental economic characteristics of these markets remain poorly understood. We suggest distinguishing three categories of illegally traded wildlife products
based on product durability and intended use: luxury durable goods, nondurable products processed to be food or medicine, and live or perishable exotic pets and plants. Through case studies of elephant ivory, pangolin scales, and succulent plants, we characterize market organization, pricing structures, supply network architecture, and regulatory vulnerabilities across product types. Our analysis suggests illegal wildlife markets exhibit economic characteristics distinguishing them from other illegal markets, including biological production constraints creating absolute supply limits, opportunistic supply networks exploiting existing legal trade infrastructure, and extreme markup structures leaving harvesters with a fraction of final
retail value. We conclude by proposing the concept of Accelerating Demand for Novel or eXclusive Assets, or AD NOXA, which describes how scarcity may paradoxically increase rather than decrease the appeal of
consuming certain wildlife markets. This paradox creates feedback loops that may drive species toward extinction, despite—or because of—protective regulations and fundamentally limits the effectiveness
of supply-side interventions. Policy responses may be more effective when they integrate supply-side enforcement with demand reduction strategies tailored to the distinct characteristics of illegal wildlife markets.