26 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: MAY 2017 careers used to be the guar- antee of a decent paycheck and a livable pension after a career of service. But if you read American Police Beat you know that attacks on police associa- tions and unions have been extremely successful. Check out what’s happen- ing in places like Detroit, Atlantic City and Dallas as far as pay and benefits and it’s not hard to see why a career in law enforcement has lost some of its luster. But whatever the rea- sons, there’s a shortage of qualified officers across the country and some say that represents a major public safety crisis. “Departments are strug- gling to find not only in- terested, but interested and qualified candidates to join the force,” Jim Burch, vice president of the Police Foun- dation, told NBC News. “With everything happen- ing around policing from salary and benefit cuts to criticism, the question many people are asking is: ‘is it worth it?’” While the economy has been picking up over the last two years and we’re seeing lower unemployment num- bers, the opposite is happen- ing in law enforcement and that’s not a coincidence. “Every time the economy gets better, the police have a problem recruiting,” said Nelson Lim, executive di- rector of the Fels Institute of Government at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. “It’s like clockwork.” People go where the mon- ey is. Darrel Stephens, execu- tive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, says it’s not rocket science. “Salary and benefits have declined in many depart- ments,” he said. In addition, the hours and level of commitment required to be a cop make finding bodies that much harder. “It’s not an 8 to 5 job with weekends off,” Stephens continues. “The lifestyle is difficult for a lot of peo- ple.” The Roswell Police De- partment in New Mexico (the one where they found that alien) has been dealing with staff shortages for the last five years, says spokes- man Todd Wildermuth. “If so many agencies are struggling with staffing, the issue goes beyond compen- sation and benefits,” Burch said. “It is a difficult time to be a police officer with the in- creased amount of criticism and negativity surrounding the profession,” he told NBC. “It’s a thankless job, and it’s become more so recently,” said Roseville, Michigan, Police Chief James Berlin. He’s been aggressively recruiting for a short-staffed force for the last two years. “You’ll be criticized and degraded, and many people think ‘who wants to do that?’” Berlin went on to say. There’s a lot of contention about the idea that more cops equals less crime. There is no “quantifiable relationship between the number of police officers and crime,” says Arthur Lurigio. He’s a criminology professor at Loyola Univer- sity in Chicago. “Nonetheless, if the num- ber of experienced police officers and detectives de- creases and are replaced by less-seasoned personnel, that could lead to less effec- tive policing and therefore more disorder and crime.” The point at which the proverbial crap hits the fan is when staffing numbers are so low at an agency it becomes an officer-safety issue. It usually starts with massive increases in re- sponse times due to an agency being spread too thin. “If the situation becomes that extreme, police leader- ship will say it’s no longer safe for officers to go into a situation because they don’t have any backup,” Burch, from the Police Foundation told reporters. That’s not happening yet – at least on a large scale. If the trends in terms of fewer people seeking law enforcement careers and assaults on pay and benefits like defined benefit pro- grams continue, that could change in a heartbeat. 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