Recruitment and Retention in US Policing: Rethinking “Business as Usual”

By Joseph Schafer, Captain Cory Nelson (ret.)

Since the mid-1990s, policing has struggled to recruit and retain quality applicants. Although many efforts have been made to alleviate this problem, the situation persists. This paper offers alternative suggestions for the policing profession to alleviate its recruitment and retention crisis. The authors argue that it is time to look beyond typical human resource recommendations to fix this problem. The profession needs to begin to experiment with more innovative solutions if it is going to achieve more complete and quality staffing outcomes. 

CNA, 2022. 48p.