Embracing Civilianization: Integrating Professional Staff to Advance Modern Policing

By Police Executive Research Forum

   For the past several years, the policing profession has faced a workforce crisis. Hiring of new police officers has slowed, while resignations and retirements have increased. PERF has documented these trends in annual surveys of our members.4 PERF found that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis only accelerated these trends. PERF’s latest survey did have some encouraging news: Police hiring rebounded in 2023, while resignations and retirements eased.5 But the crisis in police staffing has by no means disappeared. Many agencies, especially large police departments and sheriffs’ offices, continue to be far below their authorized levels, sometimes by hundreds of officers. These agencies are sometimes forced to take sometimes drastic measures, such as mandating overtime and canceling days off, just to adequately staff patrol cars and other units. One potential solution to the workforce crisis in policing is civilianization — the process of hiring trained and skilled professionals to assume some of the roles currently performed by sworn law enforcement officers. This allows officers to be reassigned to duties that require their unique training, skills, and law enforcement responsibilities. T his report provides a roadmap for agencies that are serious about implementing civilianization. It contemplates civilianization not simply as a short term solution to the staffing crisis currently facing many agencies. Rather, it presents civilianization as a long-term strategy for effectively staffing any law enforcement agency, improving performance, and, ultimately, advancing public safety. Civilianization begins with police leaders rethinking the qualifications that are needed for many positions in their agencies. They are likely to find that while sworn law enforcement authority — the ability to make arrests, carry a firearm, use force, etc. — is needed for the majority of agency positions, it is not required for every one of them. Leaders are also likely to discover that many of the positions that do not require a badge and a gun are currently held by sworn police officers. These are the positions that are ripe for civilianization.  

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2024. 110p.