Responding to the Staffing Crisis: Innovations in Recruitment and Retention

By The Police Executive Research Forum

  Police agencies face no greater challenge today than recruiting and retaining enough qualified officers to meet rising demands to provide services and address violent crime. So when the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic made it possible for PERF to resume holding large in-person issue forums, the workforce crisis was the logical topic for our first such conference. “Innovations in Recruitment and Retention to Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges,” held on November 3, 2022 in Washington, DC, drew roughly 275 participants from across the country and was a striking success. Nearly 100 people signed up to attend in just the first 24 hours after registration opened, and before long we reached the venue’s maximum capacity. This swift, sizable response — and the animated discussion we had throughout the day — is a testament to the significance of this issue for law enforcement and the commitment of those stakeholders to addressing it. I hope this report, which builds on PERF’s 2019 report “The Workforce Crisis, and What Police Agencies Are Doing About It,” will help members of the profession address this vital issue. Participants at the conference agreed that we are at a critical moment in policing. Many younger officers are resigning and older officers are retiring, even as applications plummet. Departments are competing for existing officers, making one department’s solution another department’s problem. Departments also are struggling to attract younger and more diverse candidates. The conference gave representatives from a wide range of departments — small and large, urban and rural — a chance to share their struggles and frustrations, but also to   describe changes they’ve made that have had an impact. As you will read in this report, many of those changes are designed to help officers see the organization as a place where they can grow and thrive, and where they can earn respect and hono

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum . 2023. 75p.