Police departments across the nation reported an increase in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 death of George Floyd, which led to a historic amount of officers leaving the profession.
A survey of over 200 law enforcement agencies by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found that more sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any one of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall resigned or retired.
“I just think that the past four years have been particularly challenging for American policing,” PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler said in a statement. “And our survey shows we’re finally starting to turn a corner.”
Departments around the country saw their rank-and-file officers leaving in droves following nationwide protests in 2020, causing many agencies 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 upticks in crime. In some instances, the shortages meant slower response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, police officials say.
While individual departments are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to staffing, Wexler noted that many agencies are still struggling to attract and keep officers. As a whole, law enforcement “isn’t out of the woods yet,” he says.
The PERF survey findings reveal a disparity in staffing levels among police departments across different sizes. While small- and medium-sized departments have seen an increase in sworn officers compared to January 2020, large departments continue to lag behind, remaining over 5% below their pre-pandemic staffing levels despite a year-over-year uptick from 2022 to 2023.
Additionally, the survey shows that smaller departments with fewer than 50 officers are still struggling with a higher rate of resignations and retirements.
Because the survey asked only for numbers, Wexler says that it’s hard to say whether those officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession altogether.
Many larger departments have boosted their recruitment numbers by increasing officer pay and offering incentives such as signing bonuses for experienced officers who are willing to transfer.
In addition to pay and bonuses, many agencies are reexamining their application requirements and hiring processes. Wexler believes changes such as allowing visible tattoos, reweighing the importance of past financial issues and processing applicants’ background checks faster make sense. However, he cautioned that PERF does not support lowering standards for training or for applicants.
Maria Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, believes departments have been too focused on officer numbers. She fears some departments are lowering education requirements and other standards to bolster numbers instead of trying to find the best people to police their communities.
“Policing is a real profession that requires more skills and more education than people can understand,” she said. “It’s not about tattoos or running a mile in 15 minutes. It’s really more about emotional intelligence, maturity and making those split-second decisions that don’t use deadly force.”
As with the hiring increases, the rate of decrease in retirements tended to depend on the size of the departments. There were fewer retirements in 2023 than in 2019 at large departments, slightly more retirements at medium departments and higher retirements at small departments. The survey found a sizable drop in resignations at large agencies with 250 or more officers and medium-sized agencies with between 50 and 249 officers.
In addition to pay and benefit increases, the improved retention can be partly attributed to a shift in how some public officials view their public safety departments, Wexler says.
“We went from having public discourse about defunding the police just a few years ago to public officials waking up to the fact their workforce is leaving,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question that there has been a sea change among political leaders.”
