Today’s Police and 

Sheriff Recruits

Insights from the Newest Members 

of America’s Law Enforcement 

Community

Laura Werber Castaneda, Greg Ridgeway

A RAND INFRASTRUCTURE, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENT CENTER

Center on Quality Policing
RAND Corporation

1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

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This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement 2007-CK-WX-K005 

awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 

U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions 

or recommendations contained herein are those of the authors and do 

not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department 

of Justice. References to specific companies, products, or services should 

not be considered an endorsement of the product by the authors or the 

U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to 

supplement discussion of the issues. This project was conducted under 

the auspices of the RAND Center on Quality Policing (CQP), part of 

the Safety and Justice Program within RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and 

Environment (ISE).

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© Copyright 2010 RAND Corporation
Laura Werber Castaneda, Greg Ridgeway

Supported by the U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

A RAND INFRASTRUCTURE, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENT CENTER

Center on Quality Policing

Today’s Police and 

Sheriff Recruits

Insights from the Newest Members 

of America’s Law Enforcement 

Community
ii

Preface

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in the U.S. 

Department of Justice asked RAND to conduct a survey of recent police 

officer and sheriff ’s deputy recruits to aid the law enforcement community 

in refining its recruitment practices and improving recruitment results. 

The request was motivated in part by the hiring challenges the law 

enforcement community, particularly large municipal agencies, faced in 

2007 and in part by the desire to develop a larger workforce well suited to 

community-oriented policing. Although, as of summer 2010, a financial 

crisis was affecting most departments’ capacity to recruit, all the trends 

suggest that the next decade will be as challenging as the past decade for 

recruiting the next generation of police officers.

RAND’s survey, fielded from September 2008 through March 2009, 

targeted new law enforcement recruits, reaching a national pool of 

respondents representing 44 of the United States’ largest police and 

sheriff ’s departments. The survey asked recruits about their reasons for 

pursuing a career in law enforcement, potential disadvantages of such 

a career, influencers on a career in law enforcement and employment 

within the recruit’s chosen agency, and the perceived effectiveness of 

both actual and potential recruiting strategies. This report provides the 

results of the survey, including both findings about the overall survey 

sample as well as those focused on groups often of particular interest 

to law enforcement recruitment professionals: women, racial/ethnic 

minorities, older recruits, recruits from immigrant families, college 

graduates, recruits with military experience, and recruits with prior 

law enforcement experience. Recommendations informed by the survey 

results are also featured.
iii

Preface

This report should be of interest to local police agencies faced with the 

possibility of a shortfall in their recruiting efforts. Other recent and related 

RAND works that may be of interest to readers include the following:

•	 Police Recruiting and Retention Clearinghouse, http://cqp.rand.org

•	 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban

Environment: A National Discussion of Personnel Experiences and

Promising Practices from the Front Lines (Wilson and Grammich, 2009)

•	 To Protect and to Serve: Enhancing the Efficiency of LAPD Recruiting

(Lim et al., 2009)

•	 Strategies for Improving Officer Recruitment in the San Diego Police

Department (Ridgeway et al., 2008)

•	 Recruitment and Retention: Lessons for the New Orleans Police

Department (Rostker, Hix, and Wilson, 2007).

The RAND Center on Quality Policing

This research was conducted under the auspices of the RAND Center 

on Quality Policing within the Safety and Justice Program of RAND 

Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment (ISE). The Center conducts 

research and analysis to improve contemporary police practice and policy. 

The mission of ISE is to improve the development, operation, use, and 

protection of society’s essential physical assets and natural resources and 

to enhance the related social assets of safety and security of individuals 

in transit and in their workplaces and communities. Safety and Justice 

Program research addresses occupational safety, transportation safety, 

food safety, and public safety—including violence, policing, corrections, 

substance abuse, and public integrity.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

iv

Questions or comments about this monograph should be sent to 

the lead author, Laura Castaneda (Laura_Castaneda@rand.org). 

Information about the Safety and Justice Program is available online 

(http://www.rand.org/ise/safety), as is information about the Center on 

Quality Policing (http://cqp.rand.org). Inquiries about research projects 

should be sent to the following address:

Greg Ridgeway, Director

Safety and Justice Program

RAND Corporation 

1776 Main St.

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

310-393-0411 x7734

sjdirector@rand.org
v

Contents

Preface. 

Acknowledgments. 

Summary. .

Abbreviations. . 

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction.

Background.

Approach and Data.

Survey Instrument.

Agency Sample and Recruitment.

Survey Analysis.

Organization of This Document. 

CHAPTER TWO

Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers. .

Reasons for Pursuing a Law Enforcement Career. 

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits. 

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits. 

Other Key Groups of Interest. .

Disadvantages of Law Enforcement Careers. .

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits. .

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits. 

Other Key Groups of Interest. 

Discussion. 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

vi

CHAPTER THREE

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?. .

Influence of Family and Friends. 

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits. .

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits. .

Other Key Groups of Interest. 

Role of Victimization on Law Enforcement Career Choices. .

Discussion. .

CHAPTER FOUR

Recruiting Strategies. .

Overview. .

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits. .

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits. .

Other Key Groups of Interest. 

Discussion . 

CHAPTER FIVE

Conclusions and Recommendations. .

Target the Perceptions of Would-Be Recruits 

and Their Potential Influencers. .

Recognize the Value of Both Financial 

and Nonfinancial Motivators. 

Fully Engage Current Officers and Staff 

in Agency Recruiting Efforts. 

Expand the Agency’s Internet Presence. .

Develop Strategies to Recruit a Workforce Well Suited 

to Community-Oriented Policing. 

Continue to Learn from New Recruits. 

Contents
vii

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: Survey Instrument. .

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses. .

References. . 

Contents

Figures

2.1 Reasons That Recruits Gave for Pursuing a Career 

in Law Enforcement. .

2.2 Gender Differences in Recruits’ Reasons for Pursuing 

a Career in Law Enforcement. .

2.3 Racial/Ethnic Differences in Recruits’ Reasons 

for Pursuing a Career in Law Enforcement. .

2.4 Recruits’ Perceptions of the Primary Disadvantages 

of a Law Enforcement Career. .

3.1 Influencers of Recruits’ Decision to Pursue 

a Law Enforcement Career. .

3.2 Factors Influencing Recruits’ Decision to Accept 

Employment at Their Agency. .

3.3 Gender Differences in the Factors Influencing 

Recruits’ Decision to Accept the Job Offer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4.1 Sources and Influences That Motivated Recruits’ 

Application to Current Agency. .

4.2 Frequency of Recruits’ Internet Usage in the Past Year. .

4.3 How New Recruits Use the Internet. .

4.4 Recruits’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness 

of Recruiting Strategies. .
viii

Tables

1.1 Comparison of Agency Features, Sample, and Population. 

1.2 Survey Sample Demographics: Sex, Race/Ethnicity, 

Age, Family Status, Education, and Law Enforcement 

and Military Experience. .

2.1 Summary of Reasons for Entering Law Enforcement, 

by Key Group of Interest. .

2.2 Percentage That Rated Public Service as More Important 

Than Salary, Separated by Race/Ethnicity and Gender. .

2.3 Summary of Disadvantages of Entering Law Enforcement, 

by Key Group of Interest. .

2.4 Summary of Peers’ Perceived Disadvantages of Entering 

Law Enforcement, by Key Group of Interest. .

3.1 Summary of Factors Influencing the Decision to Accept 

the Job Offer, by Key Group of Interest. .

3.2 The Influence of Victimization on the Decision to Join. .

4.1 Summary of Perceived Recruiting Strategy Effectiveness, 

by Key Group of Interest. .

B.1a Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part1. .

B.1b Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part 2. .

B.1c Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part 3. .

B.2 Demographics of New Recruits: Age, Sex, Family Status, 

and Religion. .

B.3 Race, Ethnicity, and Heritage of New Recruits. .

B.4 Educational Attainment of New Recruits. .

B.5 Military Service of New Recruits. .

B.6 Prior Employment of New Recruits. .
ix

Contents

B.7 Percentage Reporting the Importance of Various Reasons 

for Deciding to Pursue a Career in Law Enforcement. .

B.8 Number of Law Enforcement Agencies Applied to 

in the Past 12 Months. .

B.9 Current Agency Was First Choice Among 

Those Considered. .

B.10 Commute Time from Residence to Work. .

B.11 Sources That First Prompted Recruits to Consider 

Working as a Police Officer or Sheriff ’s Deputy 

in Their Current Law Enforcement Agency. . 

B.12 Factors That Influenced Recruits’ Decision to Accept 

Employment at Their Current Law Enforcement Agency. . 

B.13 Percentage Reporting Having Done Any Volunteer Activities 

Through or for an Organization in the Past Year. . 

B.14 Number of Organizations That Recruits Report Having 

Done Volunteer Activities Through or for in the Past Year. . 

B.15 Kinds of Organizations That Recruits Report 

Having Volunteered for in the Past Year. . 

B.16 Types of Activities That Recruits Report Regularly 

Engaging in During Their Free Time. . 
x

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number 

2007-CK-WX-K005 awarded by the Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services. 

We would like to thank several people for their work on this project and 

their contributions toward its success. RAND researchers Carl Matthies 

and Keith Gierlack spent a substantial amount of time interacting with 

academy directors and police recruiting operations to engage them in 

the survey. The high response rates we obtained are largely due to their 

persuasiveness and persistence with the departments. Amanda Cross, a 

RAND criminologist, and Michael White, professor of criminal justice 

at Arizona State University, reviewed this report. We greatly appreciated 

their constructive comments, which we believe have resulted in a clearer 

and more useful report.

Most importantly, we would like to thank the 44 police and sheriff’s 

departments that made the effort to distribute the survey and, in many cases, 

made time at their academies to have their newest recruits complete the 

survey. We also greatly appreciate the willingness of the recruits themselves 

to participate in the survey, and we value their thoughtful responses. 
xi

Summary

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services in the U.S. 

Department of Justice asked RAND to conduct a survey of recent police 

officer and sheriff ’s deputy recruits to aid the law enforcement community 

in refining its recruitment practices and improving recruitment results. 

The request was motivated in part by the hiring challenges the law 

enforcement community, particularly large municipal agencies, faced in 

2007 and in part by the desire to develop a larger workforce well suited to 

community-oriented policing. RAND’s survey, fielded from September 

2008 through March 2009, targeted new law enforcement recruits, 

reaching a national pool of respondents representing 44 of the United 

States’ largest police and sheriff ’s departments. 

Survey questions pertain to recruits’ reasons for pursuing a career in law 

enforcement, potential disadvantages of such a career, influencers on a 

career in law enforcement and employment within the recruit’s chosen 

agency, and the perceived effectiveness of both actual and potential 

recruiting strategies. The survey benefited from a high overall response 

rate (80 percent), and the 1,619 survey respondents included a notable 

proportion of women (16 percent) and racial/ethnic minorities (45 

percent). Moreover, the survey sample was large enough to extract some 

information from small subpopulations, such as Asian recruits (3 percent). 

This report provides the results of the survey, including both findings 

about the overall survey sample as well as those focused on groups often of 

particular interest to law enforcement recruitment professionals: women, 

racial/ethnic minorities, older recruits, recruits from immigrant families, 

college graduates, recruits with military experience, and recruits with 

prior law enforcement experience. Some departments have developed 

strategies to increase their workforce diversity, specifically by hiring 

more women and racial/ethnic minorities, as part of efforts to improve 

police-community relations and more effectively implement communityoriented policing. Recommendations informed by the survey results are 

also featured in the report.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

xii

Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

When asked to indicate their primary reasons for entering law 

enforcement, recruits gave the greatest emphasis to job security and helping 

the community. After such background characteristics as age, gender, and 

education were taken into account, older recruits (age 26 or older) tended 

to focus on job security more than younger recruits did. In addition, 

Hispanic recruits and those with prior law enforcement experience gave 

greater weight to the public service aspects of law enforcement. Compared 

with white recruits, black recruits were more attracted to the prestige of 

the profession. 

Turning our attention to the negative aspects of working in law 

enforcement, new recruits most frequently identified the threat of 

death or injury and insufficient salary as drawbacks of working in law 

enforcement that were salient during their decision process. Women 

cited some potential barriers that law enforcement careers may pose for 

them in particular. Women were more likely to cite fitness requirements 

and family obligations as barriers to joining law enforcement, and they 

generally rated the public service aspects of the job as more important 

than they did salary. However, a large majority (nearly 80 percent) of 

black women rated salary as more important than the public service 

aspects of the job, but black recruits, overall, were considerably less likely 

than white recruits to cite insufficient salary as a key disadvantage. On 

the other hand, college graduates were much more likely than recruits 

with less education to report that inadequate pay was a concern during 

their decision process. 

In the survey, recruits were also asked to think of a family member or 

friend close to them in age and consider why he or she opted not to 

pursue a career in law enforcement. The characteristics of working in law 

enforcement that recruits believed dissuaded their peers were somewhat 

different from the downsides they themselves considered. While similar 

numbers of recruits noted that insufficient salary factored into their 

own decisions as well as their peers’, recruits were inclined to report that 

their peers’ perceptions about the threat of death or injury inherent to 

law enforcement, competing career interests, long hours, lack of physical 

fitness, and personal negative views about the police were key barriers to 
xiii

Summary

their pursuit of a law enforcement career. Women tended to report that 

their similarly aged peers were deterred from entering law enforcement by 

its fitness requirements and perceived difficulties they would encounter 

meeting family obligations. Black recruits were the least likely of any 

racial/ethnic group to believe that fitness requirements would be a 

barrier for their similarly aged peers. Asian recruits, on the other hand, 

tended to note that their friends and family members found other career 

options more appealing, suggesting that this is a barrier for departments 

to overcome when trying to increase Asian representation.

Influences on Recruits’ Career Decisions

Given the significant role that an individual’s family, friends, and other 

acquaintances can play in influencing his or her choice of occupation, 

we provided recruits with a list of potential influencers on their decision 

process and asked them to indicate whether each individual provided an 

opinion about their decision to pursue a law enforcement career. Recruits 

were also instructed to note whether the potential influencer is or was 

involved in law enforcement and how favorable the opinion offered was. 

We found that mothers and fathers are key influencers on this decision, 

with about 80 percent of survey respondents reporting that parents 

weighed in on their career choice. The majority of recruits also reported 

that siblings and friends close in age offered opinions. Generally, potential 

influencers offered neutral to supportive views. Mothers tended to be less 

supportive than fathers overall, and the nature of the mothers’ opinions 

varied more. In addition, half of new recruits received input from law 

enforcement professionals, and those law enforcement professionals gave 

the most support for their law enforcement career choice.

Another area of influence we explored in the survey was the factors that 

influenced recruits to accept employment at the agency that had sent 

them to training. Job benefits, namely health insurance and retirement 

plans, were prominent in recruits’ decision to work at a specific agency. 

In particular, Hispanic recruits and older recruits viewed retirement 

plans as more important than did white recruits and younger recruits, 

respectively. The agency’s reputation and variety in assignments also were 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

xiv

widely regarded as important decision factors. Although not highly rated 

by the overall sample, affordability of housing emerged as a consideration 

for black recruits, Hispanic recruits, and those from immigrant families. 

Recruiting Strategies

The survey also provided insights regarding recruiting strategies that law 

enforcement agencies use or could use to attract new officers and deputies. 

When asked to indicate what first prompted them to consider working in 

their current law enforcement agency, recruits most often cited friends 

and relatives in law enforcement, particularly those already working in 

the same agency. Among the formal advertising outlets agencies typically 

used (e.g., television, billboard, newspaper, career fair), the Internet 

was by far the most popular among the recruits surveyed: 18 percent of 

respondents identified it as an information source that initially motivated 

them to contact their current employer. 

In addition, recruits also evaluated potential actions and incentives 

that might improve recruiting for their law enforcement agency. Such 

financial incentives as a better pension, higher starting salary, support for 

the purchase of uniforms and other supplies, and a signing bonus were 

viewed as most effective by the overall survey sample. However, other 

strategies tended to be important to particular groups of recruits. For 

example, female recruits, Hispanic recruits, younger recruits, and those 

with prior law enforcement experience viewed free training and exercise 

programs to help meet physical standards as more effective than did other 

recruits. Likewise, college graduates, recruits with military experience, 

and those with prior law enforcement experience rated choice in job duties 

or assignments more highly. These results suggest that law enforcement 

agencies may have options other than financial incentives at their disposal 

to attract recruits. 
xv

Summary

Recommendations

The responses from this national sample of new police officer and 

sheriff ’s deputy recruits suggest some recommendations for departments 

developing recruiting strategies.

1. Targetthe perceptions ofwould-berecruits andtheir potentialinfluencers.

Agencies should emphasize the positive aspects of law enforcement and 

address negative perceptions, particularly those based on inaccurate 

information. Respondents noted that their peers likely avoided law 

enforcement because of a fear of death. The reality is that, in recent 

years, police officers have had lower fatality rates than farmers, truck 

and taxi drivers, construction workers, and bartenders. While policing 

is more dangerous than the average job, the safety record of modern 

policing deserves greater recognition.

2. Recognizethe value of both financial and nonfinancial motivators.This 

survey corroborates past research in noting that many recruits are 

drawn to law enforcement for nonpecuniary reasons. We also found 

that the recruits surveyed did not seem dissatisfied with the salary and 

benefits offered by the agency with which they accepted employment. 

These findings suggest both that law enforcement agencies should not 

assume that salary is an insurmountable recruiting obstacle and that 

greater emphasis on the nonfinancial benefits of law enforcement is 

warranted. 

3. Fully engage current officers and staff in agency recruiting efforts.

Friends or family working at the department that the recruits ultimately joined were responsible for first prompting more than 40 percent of new recruits to consider the agency. An additional 20 percent 

were prompted by friends and family at another agency. Further, half 

of the new recruits surveyed sought out the advice of law enforcement 

members when they were considering their career choices. These findings suggest that those expressly tasked with recruiting should not be 

the only agency employees working to attract promising candidates. 

On the contrary, a department’s current officers and civilian staff can 

be its most effective recruiters. 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

xvi

4. Expand the agency’s Internet presence. When asked what first motivated them to contact their current employer, 18 percent of recruits 

surveyed cited an Internet advertisement. In addition, 80 percent of 

respondents reported accessing the Internet at least daily. Relatively 

low-cost or even free vehicles for increasing an agency’s Internet presence are available, including job sites such as Monster.com and social 

networking ones such as Facebook, potentially enabling agencies to 

employ several of them. Such a multipronged Internet strategy may 

help make a specific law enforcement agency salient in the minds of 

prospective candidates.

5. Develop strategies to recruit a workforce well suited to community-oriented policing. Should law enforcement departments perceive a need to 

target certain types of recruits given attrition, workforce growth, or a 

shift in hiring priorities, the results of our survey provide the means to 

do so. Specifically, law enforcement agencies can appeal to what different types of recruits view as advantages or benefits of working in law 

enforcement in conjunction with addressing what they perceive to be 

downsides of a law enforcement career.

6. Continueto learn from newrecruits.This study demonstrates the value 

in surveying not only law enforcement executives, as past efforts have 

done, but also the newest additions to police and sheriff’s departments. The results of this survey can serve not only as a source of ideas 

of recruiting strategies but also as a benchmark against which agencies 

can compare themselves over time.
xvii

Abbreviations

COPS Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

LE law enforcement

LEMAS Law Enforcement Management 

and Administrative Statistics 

NYPD New York City Police Department

POST Peace Officer Standards and Training

CBR chemical, biological, and radiological
1

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Background

In 2007, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) 

in the U.S. Department of Justice asked RAND’s Center on Quality 

Policing to, among other activities, conduct a survey of recent police 

officer and sheriff ’s deputy recruits nationwide in order to help the law 

enforcement community improve its recruitment practices and results. 

While other research has surveyed departments about their recruiting 

practices (e.g. Taylor et al., 2005), recent efforts have not targeted new 

recruits. Further, although why certain people choose law enforcement 

careers has been of interest for decades, to our knowledge there has never 

been a national survey of law enforcement recruits conducted for this 

purpose. In their review, Raganella and White (2004) traced research 

on the motivations for entering law enforcement back to the 1950s. 

The research they cite assessed the relative importance of pecuniary and 

nonpecuniary reasons as well as differences in motivations by gender and 

race/ethnicity. Other research focuses on whom recruits view as sources of 

information (e.g., Slater and Reiser, 1988) and work/family conflict (e.g., 

Ryan et al., 2001). Yet the bulk of these studies are based on surveys of 

recruits from a particular department. As a consequence, we have learned 

about motivations in Washington State (Hageman, 1979), influencers 

in Los Angeles (Slater and Reiser, 1988), and differences between male 

and female recruits in the Midwest (Meagher and Yentes, 1986), but we 

know little about how applicable these insights are to recruits at other law 

enforcement agencies around the country. 

Recognizing this gap, as well as the opportunity to build on decades of 

agency-specific knowledge, we conducted a survey aimed at obtaining 

a national view of police recruits regarding why they chose law 

enforcement, as well as less frequently studied topics (e.g., disadvantages 

of working in law enforcement). Accordingly, RAND’s survey was 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

2

designed to elicit answers to the following questions: Why pursue a career 

in law enforcement? Why this agency? What are the downsides of a law 

enforcement career? What could be done to improve your department’s 

recruiting efforts?

While the focus of the research in this report is on understanding the 

new recruit so as to develop better recruiting strategies, a department 

can grow only if recruiting gains are not offset by turnover. It is possible 

that a better understanding of recruits and their motivations could help 

agencies target new hires that have a better understanding of the job and 

consequently are less likely to leave their hiring agency.

We started this project in an extremely tight labor market. For example, in 

2007, the San Diego Police Department was understaffed by more than 10 

percent, 208 fewer than authorized (Ridgeway et al., 2008), and by mid2008 the Chicago Police Department was down by the same percentage, 

with 1,400 officers fewer than authorized (Dardick and Rozas, 2008). 

The RAND Center on Quality Policing conducted a workshop in 

2008—with several major police departments in attendance—aimed 

at sharing lessons learned on police recruiting (Wilson and Grammich, 

2009). The workshop was replete with stories of the intense recruiting 

efforts necessary even to maintain department sizes; for instance, the 

Las Vegas Metro Police Department reported needing to hire 400 new 

officers annually, and Arlington County, Virginia, has a 10 percent 

turnover rate each year, largely driven by officers leaving for federal law 

enforcement jobs. Despite such hiring efforts, departments struggled to 

maintain their size through 2007 and into 2008. 

By the end of 2008, the effects of the financial crisis were finding their 

way to police and sheriff recruiting. Police departments soon had large 

numbers of applicants sitting to take written tests. Since the crisis had 

not quite hit city budgets, or cities had not quite recognized the problems 

looming, police departments that had struggled earlier in the year to 

maintain their size or meet their authorized strength were now making 

their monthly targets. At a Seattle Police Department test in September 

2008, the room was filled to capacity with 112 applicants—four times 

more than the number of applicants who appeared for the January 2008 

test (Castro, 2009). This roughly corresponds with the period during 
3

Introduction

which we surveyed new police and sheriff ’s deputy recruits. At the time 

of this writing, in summer 2010, local budgets in many communities 

tightened, forcing departments to limit new hires or even cut sworn staff. 

In Los Angeles, after hiring nearly 1,000 new officers in recent years, the 

city began debating layoffs in addition to furloughs to fill a budget gap 

(Reston and Willon, 2010). In late December 2009, the City of Cleveland 

sent layoff notices to 67 police officers (Guillen, 2009), which went into 

effect in early January 2010. 

Because states and cities have balanced-budget requirements, police 

hiring tends to be procyclical, meaning that it occurs when the economy 

is strong and cities have strong revenues, which tends to be associated with 

low unemployment rates. As a result departments essentially purchase 

new labor when hiring is expensive. In contrast, countercyclical spending, 

something the federal government engages in to stimulate in economic 

downturns, would result in a less expensive acquisition of new labor but 

would generally break balanced-budget ordinances.

Consequently, recruiting challenges are likely to return soon enough. 

Since standard police pension plans give officers retirement benefits after 

20 years of service, this helps to create 20-year cycles in police hiring and 

retirement. Police recruiting was light in the late 1980s, which partly 

accounts for the lack of mass retirements in the late 2000s. Unemployment 

rates in 2010 also provide a large disincentive to leave a law enforcement 

career, implying that employees who would, under normal conditions, 

change careers are instead accumulating within departments and could 

separate in short order when the economy recovers. Furthermore, the 

mid-1990s witnessed an increase in police officers nationally. Between 

1996 and 2000, police departments increased by 5 percent, and sheriff ’s 

departments increased by 10 percent (Reaves and Hickman, 2004). This 

increase was partly stimulated by the creation of the COPS office in 

1994, which promoted community-oriented policing by putting 100,000 

new officers on the street in the 1990s, a 15 percent increase. This 

suggests that police departments may expect this cohort to retire between 

2014 and 2019. Unless communities are willing to tolerate shrinking 

departments, intense police recruiting will have to begin anew. With the 

unemployment rate (as of July 2010) nearing 11 percent nationally, and 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

4

already much higher in some communities, it is a buyer’s market for new 

law enforcement recruits in cities that can afford them. But assuming 

that the economy recovers by 2014, police and sheriff ’s departments 

should expect that the experiences of the tight labor market of the early 

and mid-2000s will return. Departments that are positioned to attract 

new recruits will be able to avoid the expensive recruiting programs 

that became necessary during the 2000s (e.g., $10,000 signing bonuses, 

bounties, applicant mentoring programs, highly polished websites, public 

relations firms).

Part of that positioning will necessarily involve departments knowing 

who is the modern recruit at police and sheriff ’s departments. The results 

of this survey of new law enforcement recruits are intended to assist police 

and sheriff ’s departments in understanding recruits and planning their 

recruiting strategies for the coming decade.

Approach and Data

Survey Instrument

Since research that directly examines the perceptions of police officer 

and sheriff ’s deputy recruits is limited, we opted to focus expressly on 

recruits themselves rather than on individuals still considering a career in 

law enforcement or the recruiting professionals tasked with hiring them. 

We believed this emphasis would provide new insights regarding recruits’ 

motivations, key influences, and opinions about law enforcement that 

in turn would inform the development of effective recruiting strategies. 

Accordingly, our survey instrument included questions that covered the 

following topics:

•	 personal demographics, including gender, race/ethnicity, immigrant 

status, education, military experience, and law enforcement experience

•	 reasons for pursuing a career in law enforcement

•	 potential influences on choosing a career in law enforcement and 

employment with the recruit’s chosen agency

•	 perceived disadvantages of working in law enforcement
5

Introduction

•	 suggestions to improve recruiting at the recruit’s chosen agency

•	 nonwork activities, including volunteer work, extracurricular pursuits, 

and Internet usage.

The actual survey instrument is provided in Appendix A. During its 

development, we took into consideration previous work on law enforcement 

recruiting. For example, we revised and incorporated some of the survey 

items first used by Lester (1983) in his study of state police recruits and 

later employed by Raganella and White (2004) in their survey of New 

York City police recruits to identify recruits’ primary reasons for entering 

law enforcement. The instrument used by the California Commission 

on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to survey recruits at 

15 California training academies also informed item development, and 

the commission’s 2006 report underscored the importance of such topics 

as potential influencers. Scrivner’s 2006 study on police recruitment 

and hiring corroborated the value of understanding recruits’ potential 

influencers and indicated other potentially fruitful lines of inquiry. For 

example, she reported how one department had a strong interest in hiring 

individuals with a history of community and volunteer service because 

that was regarded as a potentially helpful trait for community-oriented 

policing. She also documented the results of focus groups conducted to 

understand better the perspective of female and minority law enforcement 

employees, such as women’s concerns about the physical barriers presented 

by law enforcement and negative public images of police officers that 

both women and minorities viewed as an impediment. Last, the survey 

benefited from a pilot test conducted with new recruits at a Los Angelesarea training academy.

Agency Sample and Recruitment

Equipped with this survey, we aimed to reach a random sample of 

new police officer and sheriff’s deputy recruits drawn from major law 

enforcement agencies across the country. We did not include federal, state, 

or highway patrol agencies. Initially, we wanted to have all new recruits 

nationwide to be eligible for the survey, but this proved to be an inefficient 

approach. Major urban areas face the greatest challenges to recruiting a 

sufficient number of officers. While most departments, nearly 95 percent, 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

6

are small (i.e., fewer than 100 officers) and 40 percent of officers work 

for departments of this size, Taylor and his colleagues (2005) found that 

agencies with more than 500 officers are the ones that have experienced 

significant problems attracting an adequate number of qualified 

applicants. Furthermore, reaching all new recruits would entail contacting 

potentially hundreds of police and sheriff’s departments. Given the 

project’s goals and resources, we focused on the nation’s largest police and 

sheriff’s departments, which we defined as having more than 800 sworn 

staff. As a result of our focus on large departments, our findings may have 

limited implications for recruiting in smaller departments.1 Based on data 

from the National Public Safety Information Bureau (2008), at the time 

of our research there were 91 agencies that met this criterion. Each of these 

agencies serves between 200,000 and 10,000,000 residents.

Rather than ask all 91 agencies to participate, we opted to randomly 

sample 50 of these agencies. We created a randomly sorted list of the 91 

agencies and sequentially worked down the list to enroll agencies in the 

survey. For each department, we made contact with the individual in 

charge of recruiting or the academy director. To promote participation, 

we offered to provide a customized report to each agency that returned a 

sufficient number of surveys (ideally 50 percent of recruits or greater, but a 

minimum of surveys from 10 respondents to protect their confidentiality). 

Between May and August 2008, we contacted 67 agencies, 16 of which 

did not participate, most frequently because they did not have an academy 

during the study period or did not have the staff or capacity to manage the 

survey distribution. One department indicated that it had no problems 

recruiting and, therefore, did not see a need to participate. 

We worked with each of the 51 departments to distribute surveys to their 

recruits. For some departments, surveys were distributed to new recruits 

from multiple academy classes during our study timeframe, while, for one 

agency with several simultaneous cohorts, surveys were administered to 

one cohort—a group of recruits larger than the full recruiting class for 

other agencies in our study. Typically, all members of one academy class 

1. To develop universally relevant recruitment strategies, future research efforts could 

examine whether and how the challenges of recruiting and the motivations of officers in 

small departments resemble those of their colleagues at large law enforcement agencies. 
7

Introduction

received surveys. In all cases, given our desire to obtain impressions from 

new recruits at the very start of their law enforcement careers, we made 

arrangements to survey recruits either soon after they were hired or early 

in their academy training. Recruits participated in the study between 

September 2008 and March 2009 and returned the completed surveys 

to Abt SRBI, which entered the responses and verified the data. Seven of 

the departments that agreed to participate returned few or no surveys and 

consequently were not included in our analysis.

The final sample contained data on 1,619 new police and sheriff recruits 

from 44 departments. As promised, we provided each of these departments 

with a customized summary of survey responses for its own recruits along 

with information showing how its recruits compared with the overall 

survey sample. The overall response rate was 80 percent, based on the 

number of surveys distributed. Response rates ranged from 27 percent 

to 100 percent, with 17 departments having a 100 percent response rate. 

Of these departments represented in the sample, eight were sheriff ’s 

departments. Table 1.1 on page 8 shows that regional representation of 

the sample of departments closely resembles the regional distribution of 

the 91 departments with more than 800 sworn staff.

Survey Analysis

Before conducting any analysis, we weighted the survey responses so 

that the weighted number of responses from each department would be 

proportional to the total number of recruits the department had in 2008. 

This makes the survey responses a nationally representative sample of 

new recruits at large departments. After weighting the data, we calculated 

descriptive statistics for each of the survey items. These statistics are 

provided in full in Appendix B (see page 90). 

As we moved forward with our analysis, we opted not only to examine the 

responses of the entire sample of 1,619 respondents but also to consider 

the responses of the following groups:

•	 women

•	 minorities (Asian, black, and Hispanic)
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

8

•	 older recruits (age 26 and up)

•	 recruits from immigrant families (those who are immigrants 

themselves or first-generation Americans)

•	 recruits with a bachelor’s degree

•	 recruits with prior law enforcement experience

•	 recruits with prior military experience.

We focused on these distinct groups because they are of special interest to 

large law enforcement agencies. As Taylor and his colleagues (2005) found 

in their nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies, individuals with 

prior law enforcement experience were the most frequently targeted group 

for recruiting, followed by college graduates, racial/ethnic minorities, and 

women. Departments have long been determined to increase the number of 

women and minorities in their officer ranks, not only to mirror better the 

Table 1.1

Comparison of Agency Features, Sample, and Population

Feature 

Sampled Agencies 

(N=44) 

Large Agencies 

(N=91)

Region

Northeast 9% 14%

Midwest 11% 14%

Southeast 32% 29%

South 23% 18%

West 25% 25%

Number of authorized sworn officers (median) 2,059 1,831

Number of actual sworn officers (median) 1,984 1,739

Number of separations (median) 67 65

Operating budget (median) $140M $122M

Has collective bargaining 73% 70%

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Law Enforcement 

Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), 2006.
9

Introduction

diverse populations they serve (California Commission on POST, 2006; 

Scrivner, 2006) but also because they may exhibit characteristics desirable 

for community-oriented policing, which stresses problem solving and 

effective communication (Taylor et al., 2005). Lonsway and her colleagues 

(2003), for example, noted that women were more likely to implement 

community-oriented policing and they tended to employ a policing style 

that relies less on the use of force and more on communication. Similarly, 

having recent immigrants on the force has been viewed as a means to 

improve interactions within multicultural communities (Scrivner, 2006). 

In addition, in her presentation at the RAND Center on Quality Policing’s 

2008 Recruitment and Hiring Summit, Scrivner noted that complex 

cognitive skills are among the new skill sets needed by law enforcement 

agencies and that the new generation of police candidates includes those 

who are better educated and more like knowledge workers (Wilson and 

Grammich, 2009). This suggests that an emphasis on recruiting college 

graduates, regardless of their major, may be warranted.

Note that we intentionally do not address to what degree departments 

should actively pursue hiring goals based on diversity. In some communities, 

it is of questionable legality. However, regardless of a department’s intent 

to diversify its force through targeted recruiting, these results will help 

departments appreciate gender, racial/ethnic, and other demographic 

differences among their recruits.

Table 1.2 on pages 10–11 provides descriptive statistics of the sample. 

Table B.1 in Appendix B (see page 90) gives a more complete description 

for each of the key groups noted above. In Table 1.2 the first column 

of numbers pertains to the survey sample. For example, 16 percent of 

survey respondents were women, 45 percent of them were racial/ethnic 

minorities, and 58 percent of them were at least 26 years old. The second 

column of numbers, from the 2006 Law Enforcement Management and 

Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), shows how the survey sample compares 

with all sworn officers in the United States in terms of gender and race/

ethnicity. Specifically, the gender composition of the survey sample closely 

resembles the national population captured in LEMAS statistics, and it has 

a greater proportion of minorities than does the national population.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

10

Table 1.2

Survey Sample Demographics: Sex, Race/Ethnicity, Age, Family 

Status, Education, and Law Enforcement and Military Experience

Characteristic

Survey 

Sample (%) 

All Sworn Officers 

(%)

Female 16 16

Race/Ethnicity

Asian 3 2

Black 14 18

Hispanic 25 14

White 56 64

Other 3 1

Age (average 27.3)

26 and older 58

Family immigration history

Recruit is an immigrant 14

Both parents are immigrants 12

One parent is an immigrant 8

One or more grandparents are immigrants 19

All born in United States 45

Do not know 2

Education

High school graduate, or equivalent 11

Some college 47

Bachelor’s degree 38

Advanced degree 3

Prior law enforcement experience

This agency 5

Local government 7

State government 1

Federal government 1

Military police 4
11

Introduction

The remainder of our analysis centered on understanding recruits’ 

perceptions of the pros and cons of law enforcement and identifying 

influencers on recruits’ career decisions. We also asked the recruits to 

envision barriers that their non–law enforcement peers would cite about 

why they did not pursue a law enforcement career, giving us a partial 

view of a potentially greater candidate pool. Although these responses 

reflect an imperfect measure of the opinions of the recruits’ peers, they 

do provide a window into a group of people that are otherwise difficult 

to contact and survey.

First, we calculated response frequencies for survey items related to the 

overarching topics: pros and cons of law enforcement, key influencers, 

and potential recruiting strategies. Second, we used statistical procedures 

to determine meaningful patterns present for the groups of interest 

noted above. More precisely, we first examined unadjusted (i.e., actual) 

survey responses for statistically significant differences across key 

groups listed previously: women, minorities, older recruits, immigration 

history, education, and prior law enforcement and military experience. 

Table 1.2—Continued

Characteristic

Survey 

Sample (%) 

All Sworn Officers 

(%)

Private 5

Other 2

None 76

Military service

Active duty in the past 12 months 7

Active duty more than 12 months ago 12

Reserve or National Guard training only 2

Currently in Reserve or National Guard 6

Never served in military 79

SOURCES: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey, LEMAS data from U.S. 

Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2006.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

12

Next, we used regression models that adjusted for demographic 

differences to consider how survey responses varied across those same 

groups of recruits.2 For each question we flag those groups that answer 

significantly differently from the other groups. While we have data on 

other recruit factors that potentially influence their responses, such as 

marital status and number of dependents, we opted not to include such 

variables and instead to focus the analysis on factors that departments 

have previously indicated are of genuine interest.

Last, we reviewed the responses submitted to an open-ended question at 

the end of the survey. When a statistical finding was corroborated by a 

new recruit’s comments, we included those comments to put the finding 

in the words of the new recruit.

Organization of This Document

Chapter Two covers recruits’ perceptions of the pros and cons of law 

enforcement careers. Chapter Three describes the people that had 

influence over the new recruits’ career decisions and also addresses the 

aspects of the department that attracted the new recruits. Chapter Four 

examines strategies currently used by agencies to attract candidates 

initially along with recruits’ suggestions on how to improve the recruiting 

process. Chapter Five looks more closely at the survey responses for women 

and minorities. Finally, Chapter Six provides concluding comments and 

recommendations for departments to consider in their recruiting efforts.

2. Throughout the report, we conduct 90 regression models, each with 9 predictor variables. In the process we conduct 90 × 9 = 810 statistical tests to identify important predictors of survey responses. We report 180 statistically significant findings at the 0.05 

level, a commonly employed statistical threshold. Since there is uncertainty about the 

magnitude of these effects, testing at the 0.05 level implies that we expect 9 of those 180 

findings (5 percent of them) to be due to chance alone. We view this as an acceptable level 

given the number of questions this report covers.
13

CHAPTER TWO

Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement 

Careers

In this chapter, we summarize police officer and sheriff ’s deputy recruits’ 

reasons for pursuing a career in law enforcement. We also discuss what 

they and their peers viewed as potential downsides of a law enforcement 

career when they were making their career decision. Understanding these 

views is important to law enforcement recruiting, because appealing to 

these motivations for entering law enforcement and addressing perceived 

disadvantages are two general strategies that law enforcement recruiting 

personnel can employ to attract new recruits more effectively. 

Reasons for Pursuing a Law Enforcement Career

We asked new recruits why they wanted to become law enforcement 

officers. Specifically, we provided them with a list of possible reasons 

informed by past research (e.g., Lester, 1983; Raganella and White, 2004; 

California Commission on POST, 2006) and asked them to use a fivepoint scale to rate how important each was at the time of their decision. 

Options ranged from “unimportant” to “very important.” Figure 2.1 on 

page 14 summarizes the responses from the entire survey sample of 1,619 

recruits. The tick marks indicate the average response for each reason, and 

the lines give the range for 80 percent of each reason. For example, the top 

line shows that 80 percent of the new recruits indicated that job security 

was a “somewhat important” to “very important” reason for pursuing a 

career in law enforcement. 

Figure 2.1 indicates that job security and public service (i.e., helping 

people in the community) were the top two reasons recruits reported 

for pursuing law enforcement careers. This corroborates past research, 

typically based on smaller or nonrandom samples, about why people chose 

to enter law enforcement. Job security was a highly regarded or often cited 

primary reason in early research on police recruiting: Lester (1983) found 

that it was an important reason in his survey of state police recruits, and it 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

14

Figure 2.1

Reasons That Recruits Gave for Pursuing a Career in Law Enforcement

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTE: The tick marks indicate the average response, and the lines represent the

range for 80 percent of the responses.

RAND MG992-2.1

Unimportant Somewhat

important

Very

important

Job security

It provides an opportunity to help

people in the community

Good retirement plan

Good health insurance benefits

The excitement of the work

Opportunites for advancement

To fight crime

Good camaraderie with your

co-workers

The variety and nonroutine nature

of the work

To enforce the laws of society

The prestige of the profession

Good salary

You work on your own a lot; have a

good deal of autonomy

The job carries power and authority

Structured like the military

Other job alternatives were not

as interesting

To gain experience for another job

There was a lack of other job

alternatives
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

15

was the second-ranked reason in Raganella and White’s (2004) work with 

a New York City Police Department (NYPD) recruiting class. Similarly, 

studies have demonstrated that helping people in the community is 

a strong motivation for pursuing a career in law enforcement, possibly 

an even more powerful one than job security: Helping people in the 

community was the most important reason in Lester’s (1983) sample, 

the highest-ranked reason in Raganella and White’s (2004) study, and 

the most commonly cited motive for both San Diego Police Department 

applicants (Ridgeway et al., 2008) and criminal justice majors (Yim, 

2009). In a related vein, a desire to serve was among the most highly rated 

reasons among California academy trainees (California Commission on 

POST, 2006). Although a social desirability bias might factor into the 

high ranking of public service to some degree, as public service might 

be viewed as the “right” reason to enter law enforcement, one recruit’s 

comments on the survey suggest that, at least for some, that ranking is 

sincere:

I think officers should want to be cops to help others primarily 

and let the benefits be added additional bonuses to the job, not 

the other way around.

Good retirement and health benefits were also regarded as important 

reasons for working in law enforcement, and, again, this reinforces results 

from previous studies. Low salaries have been blamed for recruiting 

challenges in several communities—San Diego and New York, for 

example (San Diego Police Department and Buck Consultants, 2006; 

Baker and Greenhouse, 2008). However, we found that 87 percent of 

new recruits felt that the good salary was an important reason for them 

to pursue a policing career. 

Job attributes such as power, authority, and a military-like structure were 

less compelling reasons for entering law enforcement. Moreover, few new 

recruits saw law enforcement as simply a stepping stone to some other 

opportunity or selected law enforcement because they were out of options. 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

16

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits

Figure 2.2 shows the average ratings of the reasons for pursuing law 

enforcement careers for male and female recruits, excluding those reasons 

for which male and female recruits did not differ significantly. The lines 

show the range of responses for 80 percent of the male or female survey 

respondents, with the location of the circles marking the average response. 

Consistent with Raganella and White’s (2004) analysis of NYPD 

academy recruits, women rated public service as a more important 

reason for their career choice than did men. This suggests that recruiting 

strategies that focus on public service may be not only attractive to 

male applicants, who constitute more than 80 percent of new recruits, 

but also especially attractive to female applicants. Again corroborating 

Raganella and White’s (2004) work, the female recruits also viewed a 

law enforcement career as a good professional choice, as it offered them 

opportunities for advancement and a good salary. In a national survey 

of female police officers, Seklecki and Paynich (2007) found that public 

service was a primary motivation for entering law enforcement, but job 

Figure 2.2

Gender Differences in Recruits’ Reasons for Pursuing a Career in Law 

Enforcement

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTES: The circles indicate the average response for males or females, and the lines

represent the range for 80 percent of the responses. For all survey items shown in

this figure, the average response for women was statistically significantly different

from the average response for men (p < 0.05).

RAND MG992-2.2

Unimportant Somewhat

important

Very

important

It provides an opportunity to help

people in the community

Structured like the military

To enforce the laws of society

Good salary

Opportunities for advancement

The job carries power and authority

Female

Male
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

17

security was the primary reason for staying in the job. We also found 

that reasons such as the power and authority inherent in the job and law 

enforcement’s military structure were less likely to be motivating factors 

for women than men.

As noted in Chapter One, we also used regression analysis to examine 

whether different groups of recruits of potential interest to law 

enforcement recruiters (e.g., women, older recruits) viewed different 

reasons for entering law enforcement as more important when holding 

other characteristics constant. Table 2.1 on pages 18–19 summarizes 

the results of this analysis for each of the groups. Each row represents a 

regression model for which we used the variables listed in the columns to 

predict how respondents would quantify the importance of the factor in 

the row. An up arrow indicates that the reason (the row label) was more 

important for a particular group (column label) than for its counterpart, 

and a down arrow indicates that it was less important. Triangles replace 

the arrows when the effect is a particularly large difference between a 

particular group and its comparison group, specifically a change of 0.3 or 

greater on the 5-point Likert scale used for this survey item. For example, 

the female recruits regarded opportunities for advancement and good 

salary as more important reasons than did male recruits, and the upwardpointing triangle in the cell for good salary indicates that the difference 

between male recruits and female recruits in selecting this reason was 

especially large in magnitude. In addition, female recruits viewed the 

power and authority that the job carries as a less important reason than 

did male counterparts. 

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits

Turning our attention to minority recruits’ reasons for entering law 

enforcement, we first note that departments often strive to maintain a 

composition that is reflective of the community. This can be challenging for a variety of reasons. For example, some groups, such as women, 

generally have a lower propensity to be interested in law enforcement 

careers. In addition, police efforts to encourage racially and ethnically 

diverse applicants can run into legal challenges. In California, for example, Proposition 209 prevents public agencies from actively shaping the 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

18

Table 2.1

Summary of Reasons for Entering Law Enforcement, by Key Group 

of Interest

General 

Reason Specific Reason

Women

Asian

Black 

Hispanic 

Older Recruits (age 26+)

From Immigrant Family

Bachelor’s Degree

Military Experience

Prior LE Experience

Public 

service

It provides an opportunity to help 

people in the community   

To fight crime  

To enforce the laws of society   

Benefits Good salary ▲ 

Good retirement plan 

Good health insurance benefits 

Job security 

Work 

environment

The excitement of the work ▲ 

Structured like the military  ▲ 

You work on your own a lot; have 

a good deal of autonomy   ▲

The variety and nonroutine 

nature of the work 

Good camaraderie with your 

co-workers 

Professional 

qualities

The prestige of the profession ▲   

Opportunities for advancement   

The job carries power and 

authority ▼ 

Other job 

options

To gain experience for another job ▲ ▲  

There was a lack of other job 

alternatives  

Other job alternatives were not 

as interesting ▲ ▼ ▼

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

19

racial/ethnic composition of their hires. This may include targeting 

recruiting activities to certain predominantly minority neighborhoods. 

Departments clearly need to avoid “New Haven Firefighter” practices—

that is, the kind of practices that discard test results when the racial/

ethnic composition of eligible recruits does not match targets. One 

survey respondent noted:

It is offensive and blatantly racist to have answered so many surveys 

and questionnaires on one’s ethnicity through the application and 

hiring process. It should not be a factor.

It is therefore an open question to what degree departments should 

actively focus recruiting efforts on certain racial/ethnic groups. We do 

not intend to address that question, but rather describe racial/ethnic 

differences so that those departments concerned about the diversity of 

their recruits can appreciate those differences.

As we did in our analysis of differences by gender, we first considered 

unadjusted differences in minority recruits’ reasons for pursuing a career 

in law enforcement. As Figure 2.3 on page 20 illustrates, the reasons for 

pursuing a law enforcement career varied substantially by race/ethnicity. 

The lines show the range of responses for 80 percent of the Asian, black, 

Hispanic, and white respondents. In addition, a filled-in circle indicates 

that a racial/ethnic group is statistically different from other groups. Such 

was particularly the case for Asian recruits, who differed significantly 

from other racial/ethnic groups on seven out of the 12 reasons. 

Table 2.1—Notes

ARROWS denote statistically meaningful relationships at p < 0.05. An up arrow indicates 

that the group, on average, rated a reason as more important than its reference group. 

A down arrow indicates that the group, on average, rated a reason as less important 

than its reference group. We replace the arrows with dark triangles (▲▼) to indicate 

respondent features associated with a change of at least 0.3 on the 5-point Likert scale. 

Reference groups are as follows: men (for women), white (for Asian, black, and Hispanic), 

younger recruits (for older recruits), recruits from a nonimmigrant family (for those 

from an immigrant family), recruits with only a high school diploma (for those with a 

bachelor’s degree), recruits who have no military experience or no prior law enforcement 

experience (for those who do). 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

20

Figure 2.3

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Recruits’ Reasons for Pursuing a Career 

in Law Enforcement

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTES: The circles indicate the average response for that racial/ethnic group, and the 

lines represent the range for 80 percent of the responses. Filled-in circles indicate that 

the group reported significantly different ratings than the other groups (p < 0.05).

RAND MG992-2.3

Unimportant Somewhat

important

Very

important

It provides an opportunity to help

people in the community

Good retirement plan

The excitement of the work 

Structured like the military

You work on your own a lot;

good deal of autonomy

Good salary

The prestige of the profession

To enforce the laws of society

Opportunities for advancement

Good health insurance benefits

Other job alternatives were not

as interesting

To gain experience for another job

Asian

Black

Hispanic

White
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

21

Before describing those differences, it is important to note that Asian 

respondents are themselves a diverse group. The Asian portion of our 

survey sample (N=46) is 41 percent Korean, 23 percent Chinese, 16 

percent Vietnamese, 8 percent Japanese, and 13 percent from another Asian 

country.3 Almost all of them are first generation (23 percent) or immigrants 

themselves (69 percent). Asian respondents frequently cited community 

service as being a very important component of their career choice, but also 

were more likely to rank the job’s excitement as a key reason.

Figure 2.3 also indicates that black recruits were significantly more likely 

to indicate that the job’s prestige, enforcing society’s laws, and a good 

salary were important factors. Hispanic recruits were attracted to the 

benefits package, the opportunities for advancement, and the prestige of 

the profession. Nonwhite recruits rated public service as more important 

than did white recruits. Relative to nonwhite recruits, white recruits 

viewed the prestige of the profession, the enforcement of society’s laws, 

and the use of this job as a stepping stone to another job as less important 

reasons for entering law enforcement.

Moving on to our regression analysis, in which we controlled for other 

respondent characteristics, Table 2.1 on pages 18–19 shows that Asian, 

black, and Hispanic recruits all differed in some way from their white 

counterparts in terms of their motivations. Asian recruits were significantly 

more likely to report that they entered law enforcement because of the 

excitement of the work, to gain experience for another job, and because 

other job alternatives were less interesting. The triangles in Table 2.1 

denote that these differences between white and Asian survey respondents 

were particularly large. Black recruits as a whole emphasized a desire to 

enforce society’s laws and the prestige of the profession, and the difference 

between black and white recruits was especially large for the latter reason. 

Hispanic recruits were more likely than white recruits to note entering law 

enforcement for several different public service reasons, because of the good 

salary, and, like black recruits, because of the prestige of the profession. 

3. Note that since our sample included 46 Asian respondents, these percentages are 

intended to give the reader a rough idea of those reporting race as Asian rather than precise estimates of, for example, Vietnamese recruits.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

22

Similar to Asian recruits, Hispanic recruits agreed much more strongly 

than white recruits that experience for another job was an incentive to 

pursue a career in policing.

While we focused on separate analyses of the differences between men 

and women and the differences across racial/ethnic groups, we also 

examined interactions between race/ethnicity and gender, and found 

one notable result. Table 2.2 lists the percentage of recruits that rated 

public service as more important than they did a good salary. For white 

and Hispanic recruits, men and women were nearly equally likely to rate 

public service as more important than they did salary. However, black 

women were significantly less likely than black men (or any other group 

for that matter) to rate public service as more important than salary. 

Other Key Groups of Interest

Table 2.1 (see pages 18–19) also documents how other potential groups 

of interest differ in their motives for entering law enforcement. Older 

recruits rated job security significantly higher than those 25 or younger, 

and they also gave less emphasis to two aspects of law enforcement’s work 

environment, its excitement and military-like structure. In addition, they 

were more likely than younger recruits to report that they went into law 

enforcement because of a lack of other alternatives. On the other hand, 

older recruits were less likely to report that their motivations included 

gaining experience for another job or that other job options were less 

Table 2.2

Percentage That Rated Public Service as More Important Than Salary, 

Separated by Race/Ethnicity and Gender

Race/Ethnicity Women Men

White 54 51

Asian 61 82

Black 21 45

Hispanic 55 56

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

23

interesting, and the difference between older and younger recruits 

regarding less interesting job alternatives was particularly large. 

Compared with recruits not from immigrant families, those from 

immigrant families placed greater emphasis on law enforcement’s 

professional qualities—its prestige and the power and authority inherent 

to the work. They also were more likely to regard helping others in the 

community, job autonomy, and the opportunity to gain experience for 

another job as important reasons for entering law enforcement.

Generally, those with a college education appeared less focused on the 

public service aspects of a law enforcement career than were the recruits 

with less education; they rated an opportunity to help people in the 

community and enforcing the law of society lower than did recruits with 

a high school education. In addition, camaraderie with one’s co-workers 

was less likely to be valued by college graduates as a motive for pursuing a 

law enforcement career.

Finally, prior work experience accounted for some differences in recruits’ 

reasons for seeking work as a police officer or deputy. Recruits who served 

in the military viewed two aspects of the work environment, its militarylike structure and degree of autonomy, as more important than did 

recruits without this work experience. Not surprisingly, the difference 

between the two groups was especially pronounced for the military-like 

structure reason. Prior military recruits also gave greater emphasis to a 

lack of other job alternatives as a motivation. Conversely, they were less 

inclined to rate opportunities for advancement, good health insurance, 

and less interesting job alternative as important reasons. 

Like those with prior military service, recruits with prior law enforcement 

experience tended to view the military-like structure of the work 

environment and the autonomy it affords as important reasons for pursuing 

a law enforcement career. The autonomy was particularly important to 

this group of recruits, and recruits with prior law enforcement experience 

also regarded work variety more highly than did those recruits without 

previous experience in law enforcement. Public service was another strong 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

24

motivating factor for this group of recruits, as was the prestige of the 

profession. However, recruits with prior law enforcement experience were 

less inclined to view a good retirement plan as important. 

Disadvantages of Law Enforcement Careers

We asked new recruits what disadvantages or cons about law enforcement 

came into mind when they were deciding whether to pursue a career in 

law enforcement. We provided them with a list of potential disadvantages 

and asked them to select as many as were applicable. Next, we asked them 

to think of a family member or friend close to them in age who did not 

pursue a law enforcement career and assess why he or she did not also 

pursue law enforcement. Although not as reliable as asking these peers 

directly to explain their lack of interest in law enforcement, we viewed 

responses to this questions as a type of “secondhand” information that 

could be informative for developing a strategy to target new applicants. 

Along these lines, the list for this second question included one option, 

criminal record, that was not applicable to recruits already screened and 

participating in a training academy yet potentially very relevant to family 

members or friends who declined to pursue a law enforcement career.

Figure 2.4 on page 25 shows the responses to both of these questions. 

The darker bars indicate the percentage of recruits who indicated a 

particular disadvantage came to mind when they were making their own 

decision, and the lighter bars indicate the percentage of recruits who felt 

that a particular disadvantage deterred their family member or friend 

from pursing a law enforcement career. An asterisk indicates that there 

was a statistically significant difference between the two sets of views. 

Disadvantages are listed in Figure 2.4 in descending order based on the 

recruits’ reporting of their peers’ views. 

The most frequently cited reasons that recruits gave for why their peers 

did not enter law enforcement were threat of injury and threat of death. 

As shown in the figure, significantly more respondents identified these as 

concerns for their peers than for themselves. The difference in responses 

related to other career interests was even more pronounced; almost four 

times as many respondents indicated this was a deterrent for their peers 
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

25

Figure 2.4

Recruits’ Perceptions of the Primary Disadvantages of a Law 

Enforcement Career

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTES: Bars marked with an asterisk indicate statistically significant differences at

p < 0.05. A criminal record option was not included in the question pertaining to

recruits’ own views.

RAND MG992-2.4

Percentage

0 10 20 30 40 50

Insufficient health insurance

benefits

Other reason

Family members' negative views

regarding law enforcement

Personal health or medical

limitations

Friends' negative views regarding

law enforcement

Abuse of power or excessive

force used by law enforcement

Criminal record

Negative portrayal of law

enforcement in the media

Difficulty meeting family

obligations

Personal negative views

regarding law enforcement

Difficulty meeting fitness

requirements

Shift work

Long hours

Insufficient salary

Other career interests

Threat of injury

Threat of death

Military-like qualities

Perceived favoritism within

law enforcement agencies

Perceived corruption within

law enforcement agencies

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Peer

Recruit
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

26

than for themselves. Other factors that appeared to matter more for 

recruits’ peers than for recruits themselves include long hours, perceived 

difficulty meeting fitness requirements, personal negative views regarding 

law enforcement, and law enforcement’s military-like qualities. For each 

of these disadvantages, the proportion of recruits who felt it was a concern 

for their peers exceeded the proportion of recruits who had viewed it as 

a downside themselves. Conversely, issues of greater concern for recruits 

as a whole than for their peers (according to the recruits) included the 

family members’ negative views regarding law enforcement and perceived 

favoritism within law enforcement agencies. Insufficient health benefits 

appeared to be of little concern for either group. Also of note, salary and 

benefits do not distinguish recruits from their non–law enforcement peers. 

This suggests that agencies are mostly battling other factors, most notably 

career interests, trends in physical fitness, and negative views of the police.

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits

As with the reasons for entering law enforcement, we first consider actual 

differences between men and women in the survey responses and then 

present the results of the regression analysis, in which we controlled for 

other characteristics among respondents. Generally, women were more 

likely than men to perceive that physical fitness, family obligations, and 

favoritism in the police departments were cons of a law enforcement 

career. On the other hand, women were less likely to cite other career 

interests and insufficient salary as key barriers.

Table 2.3 on pages 27–28 summarizes the results of the regression 

analysis. An up arrow indicates that a reason was more important for a 

particular group than for its counterpart, and a down arrow indicates 

that it was less important. Triangles replace the arrows when the effect is 

a larger difference between a particular group and its comparison group, 

specifically when the group’s odds of selecting a particular disadvantage 

is less than half (a downward triangle) or more than double (an upward 

triangle) the odds for the reference group. 

The table includes three notable differences between male and female 

recruits: Female recruits were more likely to cite perceived favoritism 

within law enforcement agencies as a disadvantage and to identify 
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

27

Table 2.3

Summary of Disadvantages of Entering Law Enforcement, by Key 

Group of Interest

General 

Disadvantage Specific Disadvantage

Women

Asian

Black 

Hispanic 

Older Recruits (age 26+)

From Immigrant Family

Bachelor’s Degree

Military Experience

Prior LE Experience

Fears Threat of injury

Threat of death 

Benefits Insufficient salary ▼   ▲  

Insufficient health insurance 

benefits ▲ ▲

Work 

environment

Long hours 

Shift work ▼  ▲ 

Military-like qualities, such as use 

of rank and command structure 

Perceived favoritism within law 

enforcement agencies ▲

Personal 

factors

Difficulty meeting family 

obligations  ▼

Difficulty meeting fitness 

requirements ▲  ▼

Personal health or medical 

limitations 

Other career interests ▼ ▲ ▲

External 

factors

Negative portrayal of law 

enforcement in the media   

Friends’ negative views regarding 

law enforcement ▲ ▼

Family members’ negative views 

regarding law enforcement ▲ 

Perceived corruption within law 

enforcement agencies 

Abuse of power or excessive force 

used by law enforcement officer(s) 

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

28

difficulties meeting family obligations and fitness requirements as barriers. 

The difference between male and female recruits was especially large for 

concerns related to perceived favoritism and fitness requirements.

Male and female recruits also relayed the barriers that their peers viewed 

as reasons why they did not become police officers or sheriff ’s deputies. 

We do not know the characteristics of their peers, beyond that recruits 

were asked to think of a friend or family member of similar age and 

are likely to have thought of a peer of the same gender. Once again, we 

first discuss actual differences between men and women in the survey 

responses, before moving on to the discussion of our regression analysis 

of the data. Female recruits were more likely to indicate that their peers 

were deterred by a perceived lack of physical fitness. In addition, female 

recruits were more likely than male recruits to report that their peers 

held the perception that a law enforcement career might be incompatible 

with family obligations, with a gender gap in responses (18 percentage 

points) nearly equal to that for physical fitness. On the other hand, male 

recruits were more likely to perceive that their peers did not pursue law 

enforcement because of better salary prospects in other career fields. 

Consistent with the fact that men are more likely to have a criminal 

record, male recruits were twice as likely to cite their peers’ criminal 

backgrounds as a barrier to a law enforcement career. 

Table 2.4 on pages 29–30 summarizes the results of our regression 

analysis related to recruits’ views of their peers on the disadvantages of 

a career in law enforcement. In these models, we use the characteristics 

Table 2.3—Notes

Arrows denote statistically meaningful relationships at p < 0.05. An up arrow indicates that the 

group was more likely to select a disadvantage than its reference group. A down arrow indicates 

that the group was less likely to select a disadvantage than its reference group. We replace 

the arrows with dark triangles (▲▼) to indicate respondent features associated with at least 

a doubling (or halving) of the odds of indicating the given disadvantage. Reference groups are 

as follows: men (for women), white (for Asian, black, and Hispanic), younger recruits (for older 

recruits), recruits from a nonimmigrant family (for those from an immigrant family), recruits with 

only a high school diploma (for those with a bachelor’s degree), recruits who have no military 

experience or no prior law enforcement experience (for those who do). 
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

29

Table 2.4

Summary of Peers’ Perceived Disadvantages of Entering Law 

Enforcement, by Key Group of Interest

General 

Disadvantage Specific Disadvantage

Women

Asian

Black 

Hispanic 

Older Recruits (age 26+)

From Immigrant Family

Bachelor’s Degree

Military Experience

Prior LE Experience

Fears Threat of injury 

Threat of death

Benefits Insufficient salary    ▲

Insufficient health insurance benefits  ▲

Work 

environment

Long hours ▲    

Shift work  ▼  

Military-like qualities, such as use of 

rank and command structure ▲

Perceived favoritism within law 

enforcement agencies 

Personal 

factors

Difficulty meeting family obligations ▲  ▼

Difficulty meeting fitness 

requirements ▲  

Personal health or medical 

limitations 

Criminal record ▼ 

Other career interests ▼ ▼

Personal negative views regarding 

law enforcement  

External 

factors

Negative portrayal of law 

enforcement in the media 

Friends’ negative views regarding 

law enforcement ▲ ▼ ▲

Family members’ negative views 

regarding law enforcement 

Perceived corruption within law 

enforcement agencies 

Abuse of power or excessive force 

used by law enforcement officer(s)  

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

30

of the recruits themselves to assess differences in their peers’ responses. 

As noted previously, although we asked recruits to think of a friend or 

family member who is close in age, many of them might have selected a 

peer who differs from them in terms of race/ethnicity, sex, professional 

experience, and the other characteristics we are examining. As a result, 

this analysis does not precisely relate the peers’ characteristics to the 

peers’ reasons for not pursuing a law enforcement career. However, it is 

most likely that a recruit’s characteristics are similar to their peers’, so that 

we can use the recruit’s characteristics as a “noisy” version of the peers’. 

Regression analyses in which characteristics are measured with error are 

more conservative—meaning that if we find significant differences using 

the recruits’ characteristics here, then it is highly likely those differences 

would also be significant if we had the peers’ true values.4 While it is 

4, This is commonly referred to as “errors in variables” bias. In its simplest form, assume 

that p is the fraction of female respondents who reported for a female peer and q is the 

fraction of male respondents who reported for a male peer. Further assume that female 

peers have an average response mF and male peers have an average response mM. Because not 

all female respondents report for female peers, we will observe an average response from 

women equal to pmF+ (1 – p)mM and an average response from men equal to qmM + (1 – q)

mF . The difference between the average responses for men and women can be written as 

(p – (1 – q))(mF – mM). 

Note that if p = 1 and q = 1, that is, all women report for female peers and likewise 

for men, then our reported difference between women and men would be correct, mF – 

mM. However, since we do not know whether the recruits reported for peers of the same 

sex but are quite certain that p > 0.5 and q > 0.5, the term p – (1 – q) is between 0 and 

1, which shrinks the reported difference. Therefore, any observed difference we report 

here would be larger if we were able to survey the peers directly.

Table 2.4—Notes

Arrows denote statistically meaningful relationships at p < 0.05. An up arrow indicates that the 

group was more likely to select a disadvantage than its reference group. A down arrow indicates 

that the group was less likely to select a disadvantage than its reference group. We replace 

the arrows with dark triangles (▲▼) to indicate respondent features associated with at least 

a doubling (or halving) of the odds of indicating the given disadvantage. Reference groups are 

as follows: men (for women), white (for Asian, black, and Hispanic), younger recruits (for older 

recruits), recruits from a nonimmigrant family (for those from an immigrant family), recruits with 

only a high school diploma (for those with a bachelor’s degree), recruits who have no military 

experience or no prior law enforcement experience (for those who do). 
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

31

likely recruits cannot fully explain why their peers did not pursue law 

enforcement careers, recruits’ secondhand accounts are a better source of 

information than what law enforcement recruiters currently have about 

people who are not considering law enforcement careers.

Table 2.4 shows that, after adjusting for demographic differences among 

the respondents, female recruits still differed from male recruits in that 

they were more likely to report their peers’ concerns about satisfying fitness 

requirements and meeting family obligations when they were considering 

a law enforcement career. In both cases, the difference between male and 

female recruits was notably large, indicating that these issues are especially 

salient to the women we surveyed and possibly their similar friends and 

family members as well. Women also were more inclined than men to 

note that their peers did not want to work in law enforcement because 

they viewed long hours and shift work as disadvantages. In addition, they 

tended to report that their peers viewed law enforcement officers’ abuse 

of power or excessive force as a deterrent to a law enforcement career. 

Conversely, women were less likely to report that salary considerations or 

one’s past might be a deterrent for their peers; men more strongly regarded 

both insufficient salary and a criminal record as reasons why their peers 

opted not to enter law enforcement. 

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits

Our analysis of actual (i.e., unadjusted) survey responses revealed that 

racial/ethnic groups differed from one another in several key respects. 

Overall, nonwhite recruits were less likely to cite the shift work 

environment as one of the job’s cons, but they were more likely to cite 

insufficient health benefits, difficulty meeting family obligations, and 

concerns about abuse of police power.

Black recruits were most exposed to their families’ and friends’ negative 

views of police, significantly more than other racial/ethnic groups. 

Nearly one-fourth of black recruits indicated that their family members 

in particular had negative views of the police and that this presented a 

barrier for them to pursue a law enforcement career. Asian recruits—only 

8 percent—were much less likely to cite family obligations as a key barrier, 

compared with 23 to 25 percent of recruits from other racial/ethnic 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

32

groups. Hispanic recruits closely resembled white recruits regarding 

perceived downsides to a law enforcement career.

Turning to the regression analysis, Table 2.3 (see pages 27–28) shows 

that, even after other respondent characteristics were taken into 

account, Hispanic recruits were still no different from white recruits in 

terms of what they regarded as the disadvantages of a law enforcement 

career. However, Asian and black recruits differed significantly from 

white recruits in several ways. As noted before, Asian recruits were less 

likely to note that family obligations were a con, and both Asian and 

black recruits were less likely to express reservations about shift work. 

Black recruits also placed less weight on salary as a disadvantage of law 

enforcement. However, black recruits were more likely to report having 

concerns about meeting fitness requirements when they were deciding on 

a law enforcement career, and they tended to identify friends’ and family 

members’ negative views regarding law enforcement as impediments. 

The latter is consistent with findings from focus groups conducted 

with minority officers serving in the Sacramento Police Department 

(Scrivner, 2006). Specifically, some noted that police officers are regarded 

unfavorably in minority neighborhoods, so minorities who choose this 

profession are viewed as “sell-outs” (Scrivner, 2006, p. 96). 

Turning our attention to recruits’ views of why their friends and family 

members did not make a similar career choice (and first discussing the 

unadjusted survey results), black and Hispanic recruits were generally 

the least likely to select barriers of any kind on their peers’ behalf. In 

particular, relatively few black recruits perceived that their peers would 

have difficulty meeting the physical fitness requirements. Personal 

negative views about law enforcement were highest among Hispanic 

recruits. The peers of white recruits differed from the peers of nonwhite 

recruits in two key ways. First, they saw the policing work environment 

itself to be a key barrier, namely the long hours, the shift work, and its 

military-like qualities. Second, nearly 50 percent of white recruits’ peers 

have other career interests. In contrast, the peers of nonwhite recruits 

were not as averse to policing’s work environment and were less likely to 

have competing career interests as a major barrier.
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

33

Turning to our regression analysis, Table 2.4 (see pages 29–30) shows 

that many of these differences persisted even after other respondent 

characteristics were taken into account. Specifically, white recruits were 

more likely than either Asian or black recruits to agree that shift work 

was an impediment for their peers, and they were more likely than black 

recruits to report that policing’s long hours were a deterrent for their peers. 

In addition, white recruits were much more inclined than Hispanic or 

black recruits to agree that other career interests were a reason why their 

friends or family members did not opt for a career in law enforcement. 

The results of our regression analysis also indicated that Hispanic 

recruits were less inclined to cite insufficient salary as a downside for 

their peers, and black recruits were less likely to believe their peers did 

not enter law enforcement because it would make it difficult to attend to 

family responsibilities. On the other hand, both groups of recruits were 

more likely to report that their peers’ negative views of law enforcement 

deterred them from pursuing a law enforcement career. Further, Asian 

recruits were much more likely than white recruits to note that their 

friends’ negative views toward law enforcement were a deterrent.

Other Key Groups of Interest

The next group listed in Tables 2.3 and 2.4, recruits from immigrant 

families, perceived the disadvantages of law enforcement quite differently 

than those whose families have been in the United States for several 

generations. They were less inclined to have concerns about the threat 

of death inherent in a career in law enforcement. Instead, during their 

decision process, recruits from immigrant families focused on insufficient 

salary, shift work, and their family members’ negative views of law 

enforcement. In addition, they were much more likely to have considered 

other career interests. With respect to their peers’ perceptions, recruits 

from immigrant families tended to report that their peers were deterred 

by perceptions of inadequate salary and health benefits. Conversely, they 

were less inclined to feel that their friends and family members viewed 

the fitness requirements as an obstacle.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

34

Turning our attention to college graduates, this group of recruits was 

rather strong in its view that insufficient salary was a downside of law 

enforcement. They were much more likely than those without a college 

degree to identify it as a disadvantage and to report that their peers 

felt similarly. These recruits also were inclined to have thought about 

the negative portrayal of law enforcement by the media and perceived 

corruption within law enforcement during their decision process. Other 

factors college graduates tended to believe deterred their peers were 

perceived long hours and shift work.

The final recruit groups of interest, those with prior military or law 

enforcement experience, resembled college graduates in their view that 

insufficient salary was a disadvantage of working in law enforcement. 

Both groups of recruits were especially inclined to have considered 

inadequate health insurance benefits as a downside when making 

their career decision. In addition, recruits with prior law enforcement 

experience were more likely to indicate that the negative portrayal of law 

enforcement in the media was a downside. Recruits with prior military 

service tended to be concerned with perceived abuse of power or the use 

of excessive force in law enforcement and were especially mindful of other 

career interests. On the other hand, they were much less inclined to view 

law enforcement’s fitness requirements as an impediment. 

There were fewer significant findings related to peers’ perceived 

disadvantages for recruits with prior experience in the military or law 

enforcement. Recruits with military service were more likely to note 

their peers perceived law enforcements’ health benefits, long hours, and 

military-like qualities as downsides. Those with prior law enforcement 

experience were less likely to report their friends or family members 

regarded the threat of injury as a disadvantage, and were more likely to 

indicate they were deterred by the long hours perceived as inherent to law 

enforcement careers.
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

35

Discussion

In the survey, we asked new recruits to indicate both their primary reasons 

for entering law enforcement and what potential downsides they took 

into consideration when making their decisions. They also shared with us 

what they thought deterred family members or friends close to them in age 

from pursuing a career in law enforcement. Consistent with past research, 

recruits noted that job security and helping the community were key 

motivations for them to pursue a career in law enforcement. Older recruits 

(age 26 and up) placed greater emphasis on job security than did younger 

recruits. Female recruits, minority recruits, and those from immigrant 

families tended to focus on the public service aspects of law enforcement 

more than other recruits did. For instance, Hispanic recruits were more 

likely than white recruits to rate helping others in the community and 

fighting crime as important reasons for entering law enforcement.

New recruits most frequently cited the threat of death or injury and 

insufficient salary as potential cons that came to mind during their 

process of deciding whether to work in law enforcement. Recruits from 

immigrant families, college graduates, those with military experience, 

and those with prior law enforcement experience were more likely to 

report that inadequate pay was a downside they reflected upon when 

considering whether to enter law enforcement, whereas older recruits 

were less inclined to do so. However, the downsides that deterred recruits’ 

peers from pursuing a law enforcement career, as perceived by recruits 

themselves, differed somewhat. While recruits thought their family 

members and friends were swayed by competing career interests, just as 

many of the recruits themselves had been, survey respondents noted that 

their peers were especially averse to joining a law enforcement department 

out of fear of injury or death.

Women perceive the fitness requirements to be a larger barrier to joining 

than men perceive it to be. In some departments, certain elements of the 

physical abilities test—those that can be taught in the academy or those 

that have less bearing on most police work but have great gender disparities 

in pass rates—have been modified or dropped altogether to permit more 

women to advance in the recruiting process. For example, the Long Beach 

Police Department eliminated the dragging of a 150-pound dummy in 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

36

its test (Raymond et al., 2005). While promoting general physical fitness 

among young women is a challenging effort and the subject of large 

government efforts, such as the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls 

program, creating a work environment that is also sensitive to or even 

accommodating of family obligations might further promote the inclusion 

of more women in law enforcement.

Strategies can also be customized to reach out to potential nonwhite 

applicants. Table 1.2 (see pages 10–11) indicates that Hispanic recruits 

represent 25 percent of new recruits in the survey sample, far greater than 

their current representation in law enforcement (14 percent) and in the 

general population (15 percent). This suggests that, generally, barriers 

are impacting other racial/ethnic groups to a larger extent than they are 

for Hispanic recruits. Importantly, nonwhite recruits reported that their 

peers were not as averse to policing’s work environment and were less 

likely to have competing career interests as a major barrier. Black recruits 

in particular noted that they were attracted to the profession’s prestige and 

the good salary that the job offered. Asian recruits, on the other hand, 

noted that their non–law enforcement peers were captured by other career 

interests, suggesting that this may be the greatest barrier that departments 

face in trying to increase Asian representation among their ranks.

Law enforcement recruiting programs can utilize these findings to 

attract new recruits. For example, recruiting materials could emphasize 

the public service aspects of law enforcement work. Our survey suggests 

that such a strategy, in addition to attracting men and whites to join, 

might be particularly effective for attracting women and minority 

candidates. Addressing perceived downsides of law enforcement work, 

particularly those based on inaccurate perceptions, could also be an 

effective recruiting approach. Perhaps most notably, nearly 50 percent 

of surveyed recruits indicated that their peers are not considering law 

enforcement because of the threats of injury and death. This finding 

suggests that the public perception of the threat of death is exaggerated. 

In a recent study (LaTourrette, Loughran, and Seabury, 2008), RAND 

researchers examined injury and fatality rates for police services, 

including correctional officers, and found that in 2005, although injuries 

to police officers and sheriff ’s deputies were common, the rate of fatalities 
Perceived Pros and Cons of Law Enforcement Careers

37

was 14.5 fatalities per 100,000 officers. Although this is more than three 

times the national average and certainly more risky than the typical office 

job, it is on par with the fatality rates of construction workers and truck 

drivers (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). A law enforcement agency’s 

recruiting campaign may not be able to do much to blunt the other salient 

downsides of police work (e.g., competing career interests, long hours), 

but the actual risks of the job are something that could be clarified early 

on in the application process or in recruiting materials.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

38

CHAPTER THREE

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career 

Decisions?

In Chapter Two, we described recruits’ primary reasons for pursuing a 

career in law enforcement and what they viewed as potential deterrents 

to entering this career field—two sets of perceptions that likely influence 

an individual’s career decision. In this chapter, we turn our attention 

to factors that exert more of an overt influence on one’s career choice: 

recruits’ family and friends and characteristics of the agency with which 

they ultimately accepted employment. Just as understanding recruits’ 

motives for entering law enforcement and what they perceive as its 

downsides can inform recruiting strategies, so too may a heightened 

awareness of the external factors that potentially influence or lead to 

improved recruiting outcomes.

Influence of Family and Friends

Numerous studies have demonstrated that family, friends, and other 

acquaintances can be key influencers, positive and negative, on an 

individual’s occupational choice. In addition, military researchers 

(e.g., Orvis, Sastry, and McDonald, 1996) have examined the role of 

key influencers, such as parents and friends, on potential enlistees’ 

decision on whether to join the military. Accordingly, in our survey we 

included a question intended to reveal whether different individuals 

in new recruits’ social networks may have influenced their decision 

to enter law enforcement. Given that past research (Ryan et al., 2001) 

found a relationship between police officer applicant views and family 

views of police work, we thought this line of inquiry could be especially 

informative for law enforcement recruiting. Note that since the 

sample includes only recruits, we do not know about the influencers 

who “successfully” dissuaded an applicant from actually joining a 

department. 
39

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?

Figure 3.1 on page 40 describes these influencers and their opinions for 

the new recruits’ career choice. The first column lists several potentially 

influential people with respect to the recruits’ decision process. The 

second column gives the percentage of recruits who heard an opinion, 

solicited or unsolicited, from this potential influencer. For example, 78 

percent of the recruits who completed our survey received some sort of 

opinion or advice from their biological fathers. In addition, we asked 

whether the potential influencer is or was involved in law enforcement. 

The third column shows these figures. Continuing the example for 

biological fathers, 30 percent of survey respondents indicated that their 

biological fathers are or were involved in law enforcement. Finally, we 

asked recruits to indicate whether the potential influencer’s opinion was 

supportive of the recruit’s decision to pursue a career in law enforcement. 

The fourth column shows the average for each opinion (the tick mark) as 

well as the range containing 80 percent of the responses (the line). 

Overall, survey respondents most frequently indicated that their 

biological parents proffered an opinion about their plans to pursue a law 

enforcement career. Siblings and friends close in age were also mentioned 

by a majority of recruits (68 percent and 65 percent, respectively). Also 

of note, 50 percent of the recruits reported that they received an opinion 

from a law enforcement professional and that these professionals offer the 

strongest support for the decision. This corroborates Slater and Reiser’s 

(1988) research, in which Los Angeles Police Department recruits 

indicated that police officers were among the most important sources of 

information about positions in that department. Along those lines, one 

recruit explained at the end of his survey:

I ran into a police officer at a job fair who was extremely informative and answered many of my questions and concerns. He 

helped me assure myself I was making a great decision.

In general, most potential influencers offered neutral to supportive 

opinions, with some small differences. For example, mothers were slightly 

less supportive than fathers, and the nature of their support varied more. 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

40

In the survey, we also posed a question about the factors that influenced 

recruits to accept employment at the agency that had sent them to the 

training, and the responses to that item are summarized in Figure 3.2 on 

page 41. As with the recruits’ decisions to pursue law enforcement careers 

(as previously shown in Figure 2.1 on pages 18–19), job benefits figured 

highly in recruits’ decision to select a specific agency. Although the response 

options were somewhat different, the results are consistent with those 

Figure 3.1

Influencers of Recruits’ Decision to Pursue a Law Enforcement Career

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTE: The tick marks indicate the average response, and the lines represent the

range for 80 percent of the responses.

RAND MG992-3.1

Relation Support for Career

Opposed Neutral Favored

In Law

Enforcement

Biological father

Step or adoptive

father

Biological mother

Step or adoptive

mother

Brother or sister

Another relative

Spouse or partner

Girlfriend or

boyfriend

Friend—same

generation

Friend—older

generation

Co-worker

Professor, teacher,

or counselor

Law enforcement

professional

Clergy or religious

leader

Other

30%

15%

21%

7%

26%

48%

27%

19%

45%

47%

31%

33%

82%

19%

11%

No one

Gave

Opinion

78%

29%

80%

23%

68%

50%

46%

46%

65%

44%

53%

32%

50%

24%

13%

6% NA
41

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?

reported by the California Commission on POST (2006). Specifically, in 

both surveys, the agency’s reputation and assignment variety were among 

the most important reasons. Retirement plans and benefits were also 

regarded as important by both groups of survey respondents, although 

they were slightly more important to respondents in our sample. 

Figure 3.2

Factors Influencing Recruits’ Decision to Accept Employment 

at Their Agency

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTE: The tick marks indicate the average response, and the lines represent the

range for 80 percent of the responses.

RAND MG992-3.2

Unimportant Somewhat

important

Very

important

I was already with the agency in

another capacity

Affordability of housing

First agency to offer me a position

Friend or family member works or

worked for this agency

Time between initial application

and entering academy

Salary

Size of agency

Agency was willing to send me

to academy

Location of city or agency

Variety in assignments

Reputation of the agency

Retirement plan

Health insurance benefits

Factors Influencing Decision Importance of the Factor

Vacation time

Work hours available to me, such

as 10- or 12-hour shifts 

Cost of uniforms, gear, and supplies

needed for academy
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

42

Lim and his colleagues (2009) cited the long application process as a key 

barrier for effective recruiting at the Los Angeles Police Department. 

However, Figure 3.2 indicates that time-to-academy is distinctly lower in 

importance than numerous other factors for our national sample of large 

departments. The variability in the importance rating of time-to-academy 

is likely related to the variation in the processing time at the agencies 

surveyed. Comments from survey respondents provide insights about this 

variability. Several of the surveyed recruits found their recruiting processes 

to be long, tiresome, and mysterious, as the following remark illustrates:

I’ve also noticed a lack in communication with some agencies. 

After initial application and testing phases, I would sometimes 

go months without knowing what was going on or where I was 

in the process.

In a related vein, another recruit’s experience with a timely process was a 

key factor in her decision:

What helped me to choose the law enforcement agency I am 

currently with was the quick and thorough process compared to 

other agencies I applied to around the same time.

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits

As in the preceding chapter, we considered gender-based differences in 

survey responses, both before and after adjusting for differences in other 

respondent characteristics. Figure 3.3 on page 43 shows that, when 

deciding which particular agency to join, women were more likely than 

men to rate salary and vacation time as being important and less likely to 

rate the retirement plan as being important. Men were more likely to note 

that they took the first policing job offered to them. 

Regression analysis highlighted additional ways that men and women 

varied in what they viewed as influencing their decision to select a particular 

law enforcement organization. The results of this analysis for all recruit 

groups of interest are provided in Table 3.1 on pages 44–45. An up arrow 

indicates that a reason was more important for a particular group than 
43

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?

for its counterpart, and a down arrow indicates that it was less important. 

Triangles replace the arrows when the effect is a larger difference between 

a particular group and its comparison group, specifically a change of 0.3 

or greater on the 5-point Likert scale used for this survey item. Female 

recruits’ higher ratings of salary and vacation time persisted even after 

other demographics were taken into account, whereas a new finding related 

to male recruits’ preferences emerged. Specifically, men were more likely 

than women to agree that the retirement plan offered by their employing 

agency was a factor in their decision to accept a job offer.

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits

As shown in Table 3.1 on pages 44–45, both Asian and black recruits 

were more likely than white recruits to agree that salary was an important 

factor. Black recruits also placed greater emphasis on the affordability of 

housing and were less inclined to agree that the agency’s reputation or the 

possibility of variety in job assignments played a role in their decision. 

Hispanic recruits resembled black recruits in valuing the affordability 

of housing. They also were more likely than white recruits to identify as 

important factors the agency’s retirement plan, the time between their 

Figure 3.3

Gender Differences in the Factors Influencing Recruits’ Decision to 

Accept the Job Offer

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTES: The circles indicate the average response for males or females, and the lines

represent the range for 80 percent of the responses. For all survey items shown in

this figure, the average response for women was statistically significantly different

from the average response for men (p < 0.05).

RAND MG992-3.3

Unimportant Somewhat

important

Very

important

Female

Male

Factors Influencing Decision Importance of the Factor

Retirement plan

Vacation time

Salary

First agency to offer me a postiion
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

44

Table 3.1

Summary of Factors Influencing the Decision to Accept the Job Offer, 

by Key Group of Interest

General Factor Specific Factor

Women

Asian

Black 

Hispanic 

Older Recruits (age 26+)

From Immigrant Family

Bachelor’s Degree

Military Experience

Prior LE Experience

Benefits Salary    

Retirement plan    

Health insurance benefits 

Vacation time  

Agency was willing to send me to 

academy ▼

Cost of uniforms, gear, and 

supplies needed for academy 

Offer 

timing

First agency to offer me a position 

Time between initial application 

and entering academy 

Familiarity 

with the 

agency

Reputation of the agency ▼ ▼

I was already with the agency in 

another capacity  ▲

Friend or family member works or 

worked for this agency ▲ ▼ ▼

Work 

environment

Variety in assignments   ▲

Work hours available to me, 

such as 10- or 12-hour shifts 

Agency and 

community 

factors

Location of city or agency 

Size of agency  

Affordability of housing ▲  

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
45

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?

initial application and entering academy, and having a friend or family 

member with employment experience at the same agency. As the triangle 

in the table signifies, this last reason was especially important for Hispanic 

recruits compared with white recruits.

Other Key Groups of Interest

Table 3.1 reveals one age-based difference in factors that influenced 

recruits to accept their employing agency’s job offer: Not surprisingly, 

older recruits placed greater emphasis on the agency’s retirement plan. 

Recruits from immigrant families varied considerably from those from 

nonimmigrant families. They were more likely to identify the cost of 

materials needed for academy, the affordability of housing, and their own 

affiliation with the agency as important factors, and less likely to indicate 

that the agency’s willingness to send them to academy, having friends or 

family members affiliated with the agency, or variety in assignments were 

important considerations. 

Consistent with their tendency to regard the salaries available to law 

enforcement personnel as a disadvantage of the career field, college 

graduates were less likely than recruits with less education to note that 

salary played an important part in their decision to accept a particular 

job offer. They were also less inclined to rate the work hours available 

to them as important. Recruits with prior military service placed less 

emphasis on the benefits available from their employing agency and their 

familiarity with the agency (e.g., agency reputation) when deciding to 

Table 3.1—Notes

Arrows denote statistically meaningful relationships at p < 0.05. An up arrow indicates that the 

group, on average, rated a factor as more important than its reference group. A down arrow 

indicates that the group rated a factor as less important than its reference group. We replace 

the arrows with dark triangles (▲▼) to indicate respondent features associated with a change 

of at least 0.3 on the 5-point Likert scale. Reference groups are as follows: men (for women), 

white (for Asian, black, and Hispanic), younger recruits (for older recruits), recruits from a 

nonimmigrant family (for those from an immigrant family), recruits with only a high school 

diploma (for those with a bachelor’s degree), recruits who have no military experience or no 

prior law enforcement experience (for those who do). 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

46

accept the offer, and they also paid little mind to the size of the agency. 

As suggested by the triangles in Table 3.1, recruits with military service 

were much less likely than those without military service to indicate that 

agency familiarity played an important role in their decision. Conversely, 

recruits with prior law enforcement were much more inclined than those 

without this work experience to regard agency familiarity—namely, their 

existing affiliation with the agency—as an important factor in their 

decision. Recruits with prior law enforcement experience also gave higher 

ratings to variety in work assignments and the agency’s size.

Role of Victimization on Law Enforcement Career 

Choices

We also asked new recruits whether personal experiences of crime 

victimization, either having been a victim themselves or having their 

family or friends victimized, influenced their decision to pursue a law 

enforcement career. Table 3.2 on page 47 shows that crime victimization 

was an important factor for some new recruits. For recruits at large U.S. 

agencies, 31 percent indicated that victimization was at least somewhat 

important.5

Discussion

Mothers and fathers are key influencers on the decision to pursue a law 

enforcement career; approximately 80 percent of new recruits reported 

that parents gave an opinion on their career choice. The majority of 

recruits also identified siblings and friends close in age as opinion sources. 

Police officers frequently give very strong support, and half of new recruits 

reported discussing their decisions with law enforcement professionals. 

Outreach strategies that address key influencers might improve recruiting 

efforts. Such strategies could focus on educating parents about law 

enforcement careers and on connecting prospective recruits with law 

5. Many recruits noted both their own victimization and that of a family member or 

friend as important, so the 31 percent figure noted here cannot be directly computed 

from Table 3.2.
47

Who and What Influences Recruits’ Career Decisions?

enforcement professionals. For example, agencies could develop a brochure 

for parents or a short video, viewable on the agency’s website, that portrays 

the realities of the profession and expressly addresses misconceptions.

Other recruiting strategies may be informed by the agency and job 

characteristics that recruits viewed as important influences on their 

decision to accept employment at a particular law enforcement agency. 

The agency’s health insurance benefits and retirement plan were the most 

important factors, on average, among the recruits surveyed. Hispanic 

recruits and older recruits rated retirement plans as more important 

than did white recruits and younger recruits, respectively. The agency’s 

reputation and the potential for a variety of assignments also were widely 

regarded as important decision factors. Although not highly rated 

overall, the affordability of housing was an important factor for black 

recruits, Hispanic recruits, and those from immigrant families. Recruiter 

efforts to highlight how their agency is superior to other departments, 

particularly those with whom they are competing for new hires, may 

influence prospective police officers or sheriff ’s deputies to accept 

employment at their agency.

Table 3.2

The Influence of Victimization on the Decision to Join

Level of Influence Percentage

Pursued law enforcement career because I had friends/relatives who were crime victims

Very important 17

Somewhat important 11

Unimportant 20

Friends/family have not been victims 51

Pursued law enforcement career because I was a crime victim

Very important 11

Somewhat important 7

Unimportant 16

Have not been a victim 66

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

48

CHAPTER FOUR

Recruiting Strategies

Overview

This chapter focuses directly on law enforcement agencies’ recruitment 

practices—both the effectiveness of strategies in use at the time of our 

survey and recruits’ views of the potential effectiveness of different 

actions and incentives. While a number of studies have examined 

recruitment strategies from the perspective of the recruiter or the 

agency (e.g., Taylor et al., 2005; California Commission on POST, 

2006; Whetstone, Reed, and Turner, 2006; Wilson and Grammich, 

2009), few have approached the issue from the eyes of the prospective 

candidate or current recruit.

To start, Figure 4.1 on page 49 shows what first prompted recruits to 

contact the agency that they ultimately joined (respondents could select 

more than one item). The results indicate that friends and family in 

law enforcement were extremely influential in directing new recruits to 

a particular agency. This differs somewhat from a survey of California 

training academy students (California Commission on POST, 2006); 

only 26 percent of them indicated they were recruited to their agency 

via a referral from an agency employee who was a friend or relative. But 

our results are consistent with the views of law enforcement recruiters 

from across the country, who in a 2005 survey rated referrals from 

friends or relatives currently employed at their agency as one of the top 

ways that qualified candidates were attracted to their agency (California 

Commission on POST, 2006). All in all, this finding should encourage 

departments to use their own officers and civilian staff to cultivate 

new recruits. 

Among advertising outlets, Internet advertising, one of the most 

frequently used recruitment methods reported by agencies themselves 

(Taylor et al., 2005), was the only form to register more than a 10 percent 

response from the overall sample. This may be because other forms of 
49

Figure 4.1

Sources and Influences That Motivated Recruits’ Application to 

Current Agency

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

RAND MG992-4.1

Friend/family who works/

worked in same agency

Friend/family who works/

worked in different agency

Internet ad

Friend/family not in

law enforcement

Experience working with the

agency in another capacity

Newspaper ad

Career fair

Don't know

Billboard

Television ad

Posters

Military installation

Radio ad

Explorer and/or cadets program

College outreach

College internships

Walk-in-office

Open house at police department

Community organization

Magazine/journal ad

Mass mailing

High school outreach

Percentage

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

50

advertising are simply not used as frequently as the Internet. One new 

recruit noted:

The [department] website was a great tool when I was researching 

the position. There was much more information at this site than 

many of the other law enforcement sites I visited.

Other survey results suggest that the Internet has greater potential as 

an advertising tool than the responses to this question may indicate. 

Specifically, as shown in Figure 4.2, the majority of recruits who 

participated in our survey use the Internet extensively. Over 50 percent 

reported daily use or more, and just under 30 percent access the Internet 

almost daily. Conversely, no survey respondents indicated that they used 

the Internet less than six times per year.

We not only asked recruits how frequently they use the Internet, but also 

inquired about how they use it. The Internet has grown exponentially in 

terms of applications and websites, so additional data on what recruits 

actually do when they are online may help law enforcement agencies 

Figure 4.2

Frequency of Recruits’ Internet Usage in the Past Year

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTE: The following options were also listed but were not selected by any

respondents: “did not access within the past year,” “once or twice,” or “3–5 times.”

RAND MG992-4.2

Percentage

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Daily or more

(over 200 times)

Almost daily

(over 100 times)

Less than daily

(1–3 times per week)

Less than weekly

(1–3 times per month)

6–11 times
51

Recruiting Strategies

make the most of what typically are limited recruiting funds. Figure 4.3 

summarizes the responses to this question and shows that almost all the 

recruits surveyed (95 percent) use the Internet for email. Seventy-five 

percent of recruits also indicated conducting online information searches. 

Perhaps of greater interest to law enforcement recruiters, 55 percent of 

respondents conducted job searches online as well. These results suggest 

that law enforcement agencies should not only maintain a website that 

represents their organization, but should also consider promoting their 

agency in other online outlets. For example, job listings could be posted 

on Internet job boards (e.g., Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com), and an 

agency presence could be developed and maintained at little cost on social 

networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, which 44 percent of 

recruits reported accessing. Finally, given the ubiquity of email, agencies 

could coordinate with local sources of prospective candidates, such as 

military installations, colleges, and universities, to send out mass emails 

regarding job opportunities. This may be a low-cost, effective way to 

reach groups of high-quality recruits, such as criminal justice majors and 

personnel separating from the military.

Figure 4.3

How New Recruits Use the Internet

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

RAND MG992-4.3

Percentage

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Email

Online information searches

News and current events sites

Online shopping

Downloading music

Online job search

Social networking sites

Gaming

Downloading podcasts
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

52

Also according to Figure 4.1 (see page 49), relatively few recruits indicated 

that television, radio, billboard, or newspaper advertisements were the 

first prompt for them to consider the agency that they ultimately joined. 

However, in some communities, television advertising appeared to be a 

potentially important resource for attracting some recruits; for seven of the 

agencies that we surveyed, more than 10 percent of their new recruits were 

first prompted by a television advertisement. This suggests that effective 

television ad placement might enhance recruiting in some communities, 

but not all.

There were few differences between men and women on what first 

prompted them to consider a law enforcement career. One key difference is 

that women were almost twice as likely as men to indicate that working for 

the agency in another capacity was what initially generated their interest 

in being an officer (16 percent for women versus 9 percent for men). This 

suggests that a key strategy for expanding the presence of women among 

sworn ranks could be to introduce them to law enforcement careers 

through civilian jobs in the department. Almost no women indicated that 

traditional advertising outlets (e.g., newspaper, radio) prompted them to 

consider a law enforcement career. There were no differences between men 

and women on being first prompted by the Internet.

We asked new recruits to advise us on what might improve recruiting in 

their law enforcement agency. A list of possible actions and incentives 

was provided, and survey respondents were instructed to use a 5-point 

scale to rate how effective or ineffective each strategy might be. Figure 4.4 

on page 53 provides their responses, with benefits again topping the list. 

However, as results discussed in Chapter Three indicate, new recruits are 

already generally pleased with the benefits they have been offered by their 

employer. Given that recruits viewed insufficient salaries as a potential 

downside of pursuing a career in law enforcement (from Chapter Two), it 

is not surprising that such financial incentives as a higher starting salary, 

financial assistance for uniforms, and a signing bonus were also widely 

regarded by recruits as effective ways to improve recruiting outcomes 

at their agency. Not surprisingly, no action or incentive was viewed as 

ineffective on average, although the range of responses for some actions, 
53

Recruiting Strategies

Figure 4.4

Recruits’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Recruiting Strategies

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.

NOTE: The tick marks indicate the average response, and the lines represent the

range for 80 percent of the responses.

RAND MG992-4.4

Method for Improving Recruiting Importance of the Method

Better pension or retirement benefits

Higher starting salary

Financial assistance for uniforms and

other necessary supplies

Signing bonus

More vacation time

Tuition assistance

Better health insurance coverage

Choice in job duties or assignments

Flexible work schedule

Free training and exercise to help

meet physical standards

Opportunities for professional

development

Financial assistance for job commute

Financial assistance to purchase home

Opportunities for extended

leave without pay

Financial assistance for gym membership

Child care during regular employment

Child care during academy

Relocation assistance

Better or more info about what

the job actually entails

Better or more info about the

community agency located in

Ineffective Effective Very

effective
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

54

such as financial assistance for a gym membership and child care, indicates 

that a notable proportion of the survey sample felt such tactics would not 

be effective.

Key Group of Interest: Female Recruits

Although there was little variation in the overall sample (i.e., recruits 

tended to rate most of the actions and incentives as effective or very 

effective), as shown in Table 4.1 on page 55, we did observe variation 

among recruit groups of interest after adjusting their responses for 

differences in respondent characteristics. As in similar tables provided 

in earlier chapters, arrows denote both the presence of a statistically 

significant difference and the direction of the difference. For example, an 

upward arrow means a particular group deemed a specific strategy as more 

effective than did its comparison group. Triangles signify a difference 

of a greater magnitude. Turning our attention first to differences based 

on gender, women tended to give lower effectiveness ratings than men 

to three types of recruiting strategies: higher starting salaries, financial 

assistance for gym memberships, and financial assistance for purchasing 

a home. Female recruits’ tendency to focus on public service aspects 

of law enforcement rather than its pecuniary benefits, discussed in 

Chapter Three, may help explain these findings. Similarly, we also noted 

in Chapter Three that women were more likely than men to express 

concerns about meeting agency fitness requirements; in a related vein, 

female recruits were more likely than male recruits to agree that free 

training and exercise to help meet physical standards could be a highly 

effective recruiting strategy.

Key Group of Interest: Minority Recruits

Black recruits did not differ in any way from white recruits in their 

opinions on the effectiveness of various recruiting strategies, but distinct 

patterns emerged for Asian and Hispanic recruits. As denoted by the 

triangles in Table 4.1, Asian recruits were considerably less inclined 

than white recruits to believe that several financially oriented strategies, 

including tuition assistance, would be effective. On the other hand, 

Hispanic recruits were more inclined to rate as highly effective several 
55

Recruiting Strategies

Table 4.1

Summary of Perceived Recruiting Strategy Effectiveness, by Key 

Group of Interest

General 

Strategy Specific Strategy

Women

Asian

Black 

Hispanic 

Older Recruits (age 26+)

From Immigrant Family

Bachelor’s Degree

Military Experience

Prior LE Experience

Financial 

incentives

Higher starting salary   ▲

Signing bonus  ▲ 

Better pension or retirement 

benefits  

Better health insurance coverage 

Financial 

assistance

Financial assistance for uniforms 

and other necessary supplies ▼ 

Financial assistance for gym 

membership  ▲  ▲

Financial assistance to purchase 

home  ▼  

Financial assistance for job 

commute ▼ 

Other assistanceRelocation assistance  

Tuition assistance ▼   

Child care during academy 

Child care during regular 

employment 

Free training and exercise to help 

meet physical standards     

Better 

information

Better or more info about what the 

job actually entails 

Better or more info about the 

community agency located in ▲

Improved work 

environment

Opportunities for professional 

development ▲ ▲

Flexible work schedule  ▲

Choice in job duties or assignments  ▲  

Better leave 

options

More vacation time  

Opportunities for extended leave 

without pay 

SOURCE: 2008–2009 RAND Law Enforcement Recruit Survey.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

56

strategies of a pecuniary nature: better pension or retirement benefits, 

better health benefits, and financial assistance for a gym membership. 

Like female recruits, Hispanic recruits tended to feel that free support 

to help meet physical standards would be effective. Hispanic recruits 

were also more inclined than white recruits to believe that informationoriented strategies would be highly effective, and were more positive 

about the potential usefulness of providing opportunities for professional 

development.

Other Key Groups of Interest

Older recruits tended to view a wide variety of different recruiting 

strategies as less effective than did their younger contemporaries (age 

25 and under). They include a number of financially oriented strategies, 

including a higher starting salary and various forms of financial 

assistance. As a whole, older recruits also gave lower effectiveness ratings 

to relocation assistance, tuition assistance, training and exercise programs 

to help meet physical standards, choice in job duties or assignments, and 

more vacation time. There were no strategies that older recruits tended to 

regard as more effective than did younger recruits.

Recruits from immigrant families were less likely than recruits from 

nonimmigrant families to view a signing bonus as highly effective. 

Instead, their responses suggested an emphasis on flexibility-related 

strategies: flexible work hours, more vacation time, and opportunities for 

extended leave without pay. 

Table 4.1—Notes

Arrows denote statistically meaningful relationships at p < 0.05. An up arrow indicates that 

the group rated a possible strategy as more effective than its reference group. A down arrow 

indicates that the group rated a possible strategy as less effective than its reference group. We 

replace the arrows with dark triangles (▲▼) to indicate respondent features associated with 

a change of at least 0.3 on the 5-point Likert scale. Reference groups are as follows: men (for 

women), white (for Asian, black, and Hispanic), younger recruits (for older recruits), recruits from 

a nonimmigrant family (for those from an immigrant family), recruits with only a high school 

diploma (for those with a bachelor’s degree), recruits who have no military experience or no 

prior law enforcement experience (for those who do). 
57

Recruiting Strategies

Not surprisingly, given earlier findings related to college graduates’ views 

on law enforcement salaries, recruits with a bachelor’s degree were much 

more likely than less educated recruits to believe that higher starting 

salaries and signing bonuses could be highly effective recruiting strategies. 

In a related vein, they also rated as more effective strategies involving 

financial assistance for gym memberships and tuition assistance. College 

graduates were considerably more likely to agree that strategies related 

to an improved work environment, such as choice in job duties or 

assignments, were effective.

Finally, prior work experience also helped to account for differences in 

perceptions of recruiting strategy effectiveness. Recruits who served in 

the military tended to view a signing bonus and choice in job duties or 

assignments as more effective recruiting tools than did recruits lacking 

this type of work experience. Recruits with military service as a whole 

gave lower ratings to two strategies, financial assistance for uniforms and 

other supplies and free support to help meet physical standards. Recruits 

with prior law enforcement experience tended to give higher effectiveness 

ratings to a number of strategies: financial assistance for a home purchase, 

relocation assistance, tuition assistance, free support to help meet physical 

standards, opportunities for professional development, and choice in 

job duties or assignments. Perhaps these recruits’ exposure to the law 

enforcement environment has made them more optimistic about the 

potential usefulness of these strategies. 

Discussion 

When asked to identify what first prompted them to consider working as 

a police officer or sheriff’s deputy in their current law enforcement agency, 

recruits most frequently cited friends and relatives in law enforcement, 

particularly those working in the same agency. Accordingly, an agency’s 

own officers and other staff may serve as an effective recruiting tool. The 

Internet was the most frequently mentioned advertising outlet, selected by 

18 percent of the overall sample as an information source that motivated 

them to contact their current employer. Additional findings pertaining 

to Internet usage suggest that it may be a promising resource for law 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

58

enforcement recruiters: 80 percent of recruits surveyed access the Internet 

almost daily or even more often, and the majority of them use the Internet 

for online information searches and online job searches. A large proportion 

(44 percent) also reported visiting social networking sites, which provide a 

low-cost way for agencies to maintain an online presence in addition to or 

instead of an agency website. 

Recruits also evaluated what incentives and actions might improve 

recruiting for their current law enforcement agency. On average, such 

financial incentives as a better pension, higher starting salary, financial 

assistance for uniforms and other supplies, and a signing bonus were 

deemed most effective. Yet, other strategies, including nonpecuniary 

ones, appeared to be important to particular groups of recruits. Women, 

Hispanic recruits, younger recruits, and those with prior law enforcement 

experience rated free training and exercise programs to help meet physical 

standards as more effective than their reference group. Similarly, college 

graduates, recruits with military experience, and those with prior law 

enforcement experience tended to view choice in job duties or assignments 

as more effective. While offering prospective recruits more compensation, 

either in the form of pay or benefits, may help attract qualified candidates, 

these results suggest that other, potentially less costly strategies can also 

be used to target specific types of recruits.
59

Recruiting Strategies

CHAPTER FIVE

Conclusions and Recommendations

Recruiting new police officers and sheriff ’s deputies at the start of the 

21st century was a challenging and expensive operation. Even with large 

investments in recruiting, departments struggled to fill their ranks to 

meet the demand for police services and to replace separating officers. 

Although the recession that began in December 2007 greatly increased 

the labor supply and reduced cities’ appetites for hiring, trends indicate 

that this is a lull in what will likely be a long-term challenge to hire and 

retain quality law enforcement personnel.

This study surveyed the newest generation of law enforcement recruits, 

those hired and entering training academies in the 2008–2009 

timeframe, and it marks the first instance, at least in recent years, that 

a nationally representative sample of recruits from major municipal law 

enforcement agencies participated in a recruiting-oriented survey. In 

times of economic prosperity and tight labor markets, the responses of 

these recruits offer strategies for departments to be more competitive in 

attracting new personnel. Regardless of the economic conditions, a better 

understanding of new recruits can help agencies target candidates who 

likely will be satisfied with and have reasonable expectations of a law 

enforcement career, ultimately resulting in law enforcement professionals 

who are more easily retained.

Survey results indicate that recruits frequently chose a career in law 

enforcement for job security or to help the community, with groups 

including black recruits, Hispanic recruits, and those from immigrant 

families placing a greater emphasis on the public service aspects of law 

enforcement than other recruits. Not surprisingly, insufficient salary was 

among the most frequently cited downsides of a law enforcement career, 

especially for college graduates and recruits with prior law enforcement 

experience. The recruits surveyed also indicated that their peers did not 

enter law enforcement primarily because of competing career interests 

and the threat of injury or death associated with law enforcement. 
60

Survey responses also revealed the influence of not only mothers and 

fathers on the decision to pursue a career in law enforcement, but also 

siblings and friends close in age. Law enforcement professionals played 

a prominent role in influencing many recruits’ decision to enter law 

enforcement. Moreover, recruits most frequently indicated that friends 

and relatives in law enforcement, particularly in the same agency, first 

prompted them to consider working at their current law enforcement 

agency. After the decision to work in law enforcement was made, 

factors that motivated the recruits we studied to accept employment at 

their current agency included health insurance benefits and retirement 

plans. The agency’s reputation and the possibility to work on a variety 

of assignments were also mentioned by large proportions of the overall 

survey sample. Although not highly rated on average, the affordability 

of housing was an important consideration for black recruits, Hispanic 

recruits, and those from immigrant families.

Recruits also provided feedback on different strategies that might be 

effective in improving recruiting outcomes for their employer. Overall, 

financial incentives, such as a higher starting salary and signing bonus, 

were viewed as most effective, but other strategies emerged as important 

to different types of recruits. For example, women and Hispanic recruits 

were among those who rated free training and exercise programs to help 

meet physical standards as more effective, and college graduates were one 

of several groups of recruits who placed greater emphasis on the value of 

choice in job duties or assignments. 

Overall, the experiences and opinions that recruits shared through their 

survey responses can inform the development of recruiting strategies. We 

conclude this report by highlighting some of those strategies, along with 

other recommendations that can be gleaned from the respondents.

Target the Perceptions of Would-Be Recruits and 

Their Potential Influencers

Survey results show how powerful recruits’ own perceptions and those 

of key influencers, such as family and friends, can be in influencing 

the decision to enter law enforcement. For example, the prestige of 
61

Conclusions and Recommendations

the profession was a draw for some recruits, including black recruits, 

Hispanic recruits, those from immigrant families, and those with prior 

law enforcement experience in particular. Conversely, a family’s negative 

views regarding law enforcement were seen as a downside to entering 

law enforcement, especially for black recruits and those from immigrant 

families. Further, perceptions of the threat of injury or death related to 

working in law enforcement were viewed by recruits as a primary reason 

why their similarly aged peers did not follow the same career path. 

These findings suggest that law enforcement agencies should endeavor to 

shape these perceptions about law enforcement careers, not only among 

prospective recruits, but also among people well situated to influence 

the next generation of police officers and sheriff ’s deputies. Efforts to 

enhance the prestige of the profession, such as by publicly recognizing 

the achievements of individual officers as well as agency-level successes, 

are one way to accomplish this. Another potential strategy is to employ 

public messages transmitted via different media (e.g., television, 

Internet) to both acknowledge and address negative views regarding law 

enforcement. Using a diverse group of real officers or deputies to talk 

about the realities of their profession, why they do it, and its rewards 

may be especially effective in shaping views of law enforcement held by 

prospective candidates or their family members.

In addition, law enforcement recruiting professionals may influence 

the perceptions of prospective candidates so that they not only want to 

pursue a career in law enforcement, but also do so at the professional’s 

own department, by pointing out how the department favorably compares 

with other employment options. Social psychology research is rife with 

evidence on how an individual’s choice of referent, or comparison other, 

can affect his or her perspective. Accordingly, with the right basis for 

comparison, an agency’s characteristics or aspects of the job itself may 

be viewed in a more favorable light. For example, the starting salary 

offered by a specific agency may not be as readily deemed insufficient if 

it is greater than other local alternatives and recruits are provided with 

the information necessary to make such a comparison. For example, a 

department such as Chicago’s could note that its starting salary ($43,000) 

is competitive with other occupations in the city, such as mail carriers 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

62

($37,000), teachers ($44,000), and paralegals ($45,000) as well as with 

starting law enforcement salaries in nearby communities, such as Joliet 

($43,000), and then note that the salary increases (to $58,000) by 18 

months. Similarly, certain groups of recruits were concerned about the 

affordability of housing when deciding where to work. If the average 

price of housing is lower in communities near a particular agency than 

for those near its competitors, this may be a basis for comparison about 

which recruiters should educate prospective candidates. 

A third perception-related technique is to correct misperceptions held 

by would-be candidates and their sphere of influence more generally. 

For example, while the threats of injury or death may loom large in the 

minds of recruits’ peers, and perhaps in those of recruits’ parents and other 

influencers, the reality is that, in recent years, police officers have had lower 

fatality rates than farmers, truck and taxi drivers, construction workers, 

and bartenders (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). While policing is 

more dangerous than the average job, the safety record of modern policing 

deserves greater recognition. Accordingly, touting the profession’s safety 

record and safety practices via public announcements, parents’ brochures, 

and other instruments might increase the pool of interested candidates by 

correcting their perceptions and those of the people closest to them.

Recognize the Value of Both Financial and 

Nonfinancial Motivators

Salary is often cited as a key reason for recruiting challenges in the law 

enforcement community, and, indeed, insufficient salary was one of 

the most frequently mentioned downsides that recruits considered 

when contemplating a career in law enforcement. However, this survey 

corroborates past research in noting that many recruits are drawn to law 

enforcement for nonpecuniary reasons; further, the recruits surveyed in 

this study did not seem dissatisfied with the salary and benefits offered 

by the agency with which they accepted employment. Some important 

groups, including women, Asian recruits, and black recruits, tended to 

indicate that the salary offered by their agency was actually a factor that 

influenced their decision to accept the job offer. 
63

Conclusions and Recommendations

These findings suggest that (1) law enforcement agencies should not 

assume that a low salary is a powerful deterrent to potential recruits and 

(2) greater emphasis on the nonfinancial benefits of law enforcement 

is warranted. In some labor markets, such as those in which suburban 

departments have salaries that are more than $10,000 higher than the 

major urban department, this may pose a problem. However, for other 

departments with which RAND has studied recruiting—the San Diego 

Police Department, for example (Ridgeway et al., 2008)—changes in 

recruiting practices alone, with no changes in base pay, have been able 

to increase applications and recruits. Law enforcement departments 

should not only show how their compensation and benefits compare 

favorably with other local employment options, as noted in the preceding 

recommendation, but should also highlight positive aspects of working 

in law enforcement, such as the prestige of the profession and its public 

service aspect. Calling candidates’ attention to the nonpecuniary benefits 

of working in law enforcement may show how such a career can offer 

intrinsic rewards that may be just as important as, or more important 

than, external ones.

Fully Engage Current Officers and Staff in Agency 

Recruiting Efforts

As noted earlier, friends or family working at the department that 

recruits’ ultimately joined were responsible for first prompting more 

than 40 percent of new recruits to consider the agency. An additional 

20 percent were prompted by friends and family at another agency. 

In addition, half of the new recruits sought out the advice of law 

enforcement members when they were considering their career choices. 

These findings suggest that those expressly tasked with recruiting 

should not be the only agency employees working to attract promising 

candidates. On the contrary, a department’s current officers and 

civilian staff can be among its most effective recruiters. In order to tap 

into this in-house resource, those directly responsible for recruiting 

may ask officers to accompany them to career fairs, for example, or 

develop other ways to connect prospective candidates directly with 

current law enforcement professionals. If necessary, the agency may 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

64

develop training or guidance for employees who are interested in 

supporting recruitment in this manner yet could benefit from advice 

on how to make the most of such interactions (e.g., what aspects of law 

enforcement to emphasize, what types of questions to avoid posing to 

would-be recruits). When such interaction is less feasible, as may be the 

case for nonlocal would-be candidates, officers and staff could instead 

offer personal testimonials that can be used in recruiting materials 

(e.g., videos, public announcements). Moreover, agencies may consider 

offering incentives to current employees for successful referrals (e.g., a 

monetary bonus or extra vacation time for bringing in applicants who 

make it to a certain phase in the recruiting process). Simply publicizing 

hiring efforts and successes, including acknowledging the individuals 

responsible for new hires, may help promote the idea that recruiting is 

an agency-level effort to which all employees can contribute.

Expand the Agency’s Internet Presence

When asked what first motivated them to contact their current employer, 

18 percent of recruits surveyed cited an Internet ad. Other findings 

show that recruits use the Internet both often and broadly: 80 percent 

of respondents access the Internet at least daily, and large proportions of 

them use it for email, online information searches, online job searches, 

and social networking. While many large law enforcement departments 

have already invested resources to develop and maintain their own 

websites, there may be other, less costly ways that agencies can benefit 

from recruits’, and, presumably, would-be recruits’, extensive use of 

the Internet. Job listings could be posted on Internet job boards (e.g., 

CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com), advertisements could be designed to 

appear in response to information searches related to law enforcement, 

and an agency presence could be created on social networking sites such 

as Facebook and MySpace. Agencies could also work with local sources 

of prospective candidates, such as military installations, colleges, and 

universities, to send out mass emails regarding job opportunities to 

criminal justice majors and personnel separating from the military. These 

approaches may be relatively low-cost or even free, potentially enabling 

agencies to employ several of them. Such a multipronged Internet strategy 
65

Conclusions and Recommendations

may help make a specific law enforcement agency salient in the minds 

of prospective candidates, in addition to leaving them with a favorable 

impression of working in law enforcement.

Develop Strategies to Recruit a Workforce Well 

Suited to Community-Oriented Policing

At the outset of this report, we discussed how police officers and sheriff’s 

deputies who vary in terms of their gender, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, 

and educational background may improve law enforcement departments’ 

capacity to engage in community-oriented policing. Should law enforcement 

departments perceive a need to target certain types of recruits because of 

attrition, workforce growth, or a shift in hiring priorities, the results of our 

survey provide the means to do so. Specifically, law enforcement agencies 

can appeal to what different types of recruits view as advantages or benefits 

of working in law enforcement in conjunction with addressing what they 

perceive to be downsides of a law enforcement career.

For example, a department that is actively seeking to add more women 

to its ranks can customize a recruiting strategy specifically for women. 

In addition, profiling female leaders in the department can signal that 

women have opportunities to advance in the department, a key reason 

women cite for pursing law enforcement in the first place. 

Along with women, Hispanic recruits were more likely to indicate 

that they entered law enforcement because of its opportunities for 

advancement. Asian recruits in particular valued the excitement of the 

work. Occupational prestige was a draw for several groups of interest, 

including black recruits, Hispanic recruits, and those from immigrant 

families, as was the public service aspect of the job. Stressing these 

different positive aspects of law enforcement, especially through outlets 

and in locations more likely to reach targeted groups of prospective 

candidates, may help departments attract more of the types of individuals 

they believe will complement the current workforce. 

Turning our attention to perceived challenges or downsides of 

law enforcement, they also provide law enforcement agencies with 

opportunities to improve their recruiting. Understanding the barriers 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

66

to entry is an important step toward developing a diverse force that is 

well positioned to engage in community-oriented policing in a diverse 

community. Equipped with information about what groups such as 

women or college graduates view as negative aspects of or barriers to law 

enforcement, agencies can develop strategies expressly intended to quell 

such misgivings. For example, college graduates were more inclined than 

less educated recruits to cite the negative portrayal of law enforcement in 

the media and perceived corruption in law enforcement departments as 

career field disadvantages. Agencies may address such concerns head-on 

by acknowledging past problems (if they exist) or correcting related 

misperceptions and by showing prospective recruits examples of positive 

portrayals by the media and other commendations for a job well done. 

In a related vein, female recruits were more inclined than male recruits 

to report concerns about difficulties meeting fitness requirements. One 

way departments may alleviate this unease is to assess whether the fitness 

requirements, such as rescue drags and wall climbs, need to be tested 

during the recruiting process or whether certain skills can instead be 

acquired and practiced in the academy. Another approach may be to offer 

exercise classes or some sort of pre-academy “boot camp” that will prepare 

recruits to meet an agency’s physical standards. In our survey, female 

recruits rated this potential strategy as more effective than did male 

recruits. In addition, it may be a useful way for prospective candidates 

to spend some of their time while waiting for their application to be 

processed or for training to commence. Some departments, such as the 

Los Angeles Police Department, provide new recruits with an exercise 

curriculum to get them prepared for the police academy. In a related 

example, the Sacramento Sheriff ’s Department developed a “Fitness 

Challenge” that it has credited with increasing the number of women 

entering its training academies. Many of the agency’s female deputies are 

involved in this program, which entails dividing female candidates into 

teams. The teams then train together at a local fitness facility, and, at the 

end of 12 weeks, they compete and receive awards. Individual routines 

and training goals are also encouraged as part of the process (California 

Commission on POST, 2006).
67

Conclusions and Recommendations

Women also indicated that their peers felt they could not balance family 

obligations with a law enforcement career. Having a few female officers 

or deputies who have been able to balance family and career describe their 

experiences, either at recruiting events or on a recruiting website, might 

sway some women to reconsider.

Continue to Learn from New Recruits

This study demonstrates the value in not only surveying law 

enforcement professionals, as many past efforts have done, but also 

in focusing specifically on the newest additions to police and sheriff ’s 

departments. The results of this survey can serve not only as a source of 

ideas for recruiting strategies but also as a benchmark of sorts against 

which agencies can compare themselves over time. Will recruits’ reasons 

for entering law enforcement change in the years to come? Will their 

views of law enforcement’s disadvantages or the perceived usefulness 

of different recruitment strategies shift in light of economic changes 

or the law enforcement community’s greater emphasis on communityoriented policing? 

The survey instrument we utilized in this study, provided in Appendix A, 

can be used by law enforcement departments themselves to learn about 

different training academy cohorts. Administering the survey to multiple 

classes will enable agencies to study how recruits’ perceptions of law 

enforcement in general and their employing agency in particular may 

evolve over time. In addition, questions from the survey could be adapted 

for use at an earlier point, during the recruitment and selection process, in 

order to learn about prospective candidates’ reasons for pursuing a career 

in law enforcement, their key influencers, or other views. By continuing 

to “take the pulse” of new recruits in these ways, agencies can adjust 

their recruiting strategies as necessary to ensure the desired quantity and 

quality of applicants are obtained.
68

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

Background Information

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department 

of Justice has asked RAND’s Center on Quality Policing to conduct 

a survey of recent police officer and sheriff ’s deputy recruits from 

approximately 50 communities nationwide in order to help the law 

enforcement community improve its recruitment practices and results. 

RAND Corporation is a non-profit research institution headquartered 

in Santa Monica, CA that conducts independent, objective research and 

analysis to advance public policy. Information about RAND and its 

Center on Quality Policing is available at http://cqp.rand.org.

We are asking you to participate in this survey because you are a 

recent recruit in one of the law enforcement agencies included in our 

research. The survey consists primarily of multiple questions about your 

background, your opinions as a recent recruit, and your opinions about 

the recruiting of police officers and sheriff deputies more generally. It 

should take about 15 minutes to complete the survey. 

This survey is completely voluntary. You do not have to participate, and 

you may choose to skip a specific question for any reason. However, we 

strongly encourage you to participate, as responses from your agency and 

others across the nation are necessary to ensure we have a representative 

sample upon which to provide the law enforcement community with 

concrete, actionable lessons for recruiting success. 

We are not requesting any information that directly identifies you; 

we do not need your name, address, or other personal information.

Your agency will not have access to your individual survey. Your survey 

will not be shared with anyone outside the RAND project team, and the 

hard copy of your survey will be destroyed after the study is complete. 
69

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

The results of the survey will be featured on RAND’s web site and in a 

published report. In addition, if enough of your fellow recruits complete 

the survey, your own agency will receive a customized survey report that 

features your agency’s responses, as a group, and compares them with 

responses from other law enforcement agencies. Please note that findings 

from the survey will only be presented in summary form and will not be 

portrayed to identify a specific individual in any way. 

If you have any questions about this survey, please feel free to write to 

RAND at COPS_survey@rand.org, and you will receive a response as 

soon as possible. You may also contact the lead researcher, Dr. Laura 

Castaneda, at 310-393-0411 x6897 or laurawc@rand.org. 

To ensure your response can be included in our analysis, we request that 

you return your completed survey within one month of receipt using the 

self-addressed, stamped envelope that you were provided. 

Thank you for sharing your time and insights in support of this study.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

70

RAND Law Enforcement Officer Recruitment Survey

Background

This first section of the survey contains questions about your personal 

background, such as your gender, age, education, and military experience. 

1. What is your gender?

❒ Male

❒ Female

2. In what year were you born?

Year: 19 ___

3. What is your marital status?

❒ Now married

❒ Widowed

❒ Divorced

❒ Separated

❒ Never married

4. How many children or legal dependents under the age of 18 do 

you have?

___ children 

5. Are you Spanish/Hispanic/Latino?

❒ No, not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino

❒ Yes, Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano

❒ Yes, Puerto Rican

❒ Yes, Cuban

❒ Yes, other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino 
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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

6. What is your race? Please mark (X) one or more races to indicate 

what you consider yourself to be.

❒ White

❒ Black or African American

❒ American Indian or Alaska Native

❒ Asian Indian

❒ Chinese

❒ Filipino

❒ Japanese

❒ Korean

❒ Vietnamese

❒ Other Asian 

❒ Native Hawaiian

❒ Guamanian or Chamorro

❒ Samoan

❒ Other Pacific Islander 

❒ Some other race (please specify): ________________________

7. Where were you born?

❒ In the United States—print name of state: 

__________________________ 

❒ Outside the United States, but on U.S. territory (e.g., a U.S. 

military installation, Puerto Rico, Guam) 

❒ Outside the United States—print name of foreign country: 

__________________________ 

8. How long have you and your family lived in the United States? Please 

select the statement that best reflects your family’s experience in the 

United States.

❒ I was born in the United States, but both of my parents were 

born outside the United States.

❒ I was born in the United States, as was one of my parents. My 

other parent was born outside the United States.
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

72

❒ I was born in the United States, and both of my parents were 

also born in the United States, but not all of my grandparents 

were. 

❒ My grandparents, my parents, and I were all born in the 

United States. 

❒ Don’t know

9. What is your current religious preference, if any? Please print the 

name of your religion in the space that follows or mark the box for 

“None.” 

__________________________ 

❒ None

10. What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed? 

Please mark (X) only one box. If currently enrolled, mark the 

previous grade or the highest degree received.

❒ High school graduate—high school diploma or equivalent (for 

example: GED)  Skip next question

❒ Some college credit, but less than 1 year

❒ 1 or more years of college, no degree

❒ Associate’s degree (for example: AA, AS)

❒ Bachelor’s degree (for example: BA, AB, BS)

❒ Master’s degree (for example: MA, MS, MEng, MEd, 

MSW, MBA)

❒ Professional degree (for example: MD, DDS, DVM, 

LLB, JD)

❒ Doctorate degree (for example: PhD, EdD)

11. If you attended college, what was your most recent field of study?

❒ Criminology, criminal justice, or law enforcement

❒ Pre-law or law school

❒ Math or engineering

❒ Business

❒ Natural or physical science

❒ Social science
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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

❒ Pre-med, nursing, or other healthcare field

❒ Agriculture

❒ Liberal arts or humanities

❒ Other (please specify:) __________________________

12. Have you ever served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces, 

military Reserve, or National Guard? 

Active duty does not include training for the Reserve or National 

Guard, but does include activation, for example, for Operation 

Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom.

❒ Yes, on active duty during the last 12 months

❒ Yes, on active duty in the past, but not during the last 12 

months

❒ No, training for the Reserve or National Guard only  Skip to 

Question 14

❒ No, never served in the military  Skip to Question 16

13. In total, how much active-duty military service have you had? Please 

enter the total number of time in the boxes that follow. If you served 

for less than one year in total, enter only months.

___ years ___ months

14. Are you currently in the Reserve or National Guard?

❒ Yes 

❒ No 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

74

15. In which component or components have you served? Please mark 

(X) as many boxes that apply.

Active Components

❒ U.S. Army

❒ U.S. Air Force

❒ U.S. Marine Corps

❒ U.S. Navy

❒ U.S. Coast Guard

Reserve Components

❒ U.S. Army Reserve

❒ U.S. Air Force Reserve

❒ U.S. Marine Forces Reserve

❒ U.S. Navy Reserve

❒ U.S. Coast Guard Reserve

❒ U.S. Army National Guard

❒ U.S. Air National Guard

❒ Other, including foreign military service—

print name of component or service: 

___________________________________________

16. Immediately before you joined your current law enforcement agency, 

were you: 

❒ A full time student?

❒ An active duty member of the Armed Forces?

❒ An employee of a private for-profit company or business, or of 

an individual, for wages, salary or commissions?

❒ An employee of a private not-for-profit, tax exempt, or charitable organization?

❒ A local government employee (city, county, etc.)?

❒ A state government employee?

❒ A federal government employee?

❒ Self-employed in own not incorporated business, professional 

practice or farm?

❒ Self-employed in own incorporated business, professional 

practice or farm?

❒ Working without pay in family business or farm?

❒ Unemployed but looking for work?

❒ Unemployed but not looking for work?
75

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

Your Career in Law Enforcement

This section of the survey contains questions about your decision to 

become a police officer or sheriff ’s deputy, the law enforcement agency 

with which you are currently employed, and what influenced your 

decision to accept employment there. 

17. Do you have previous experience working in law enforcement? Please 

mark (X) as many boxes that apply.

❒ Yes, for this law enforcement agency 

❒ Yes, for another city or county law enforcement agency

❒ Yes, for a state law enforcement agency

❒ Yes, for a federal law enforcement agency

❒ Yes, in private sector law enforcement (e.g., private security 

company, security department for a private organization)

❒ Yes, while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, Military Reserve, 

or National Guard (e.g., military police, security forces)

❒ No

❒ Other (please specify:) _______________________________

18. People give many reasons for why they became law enforcement 

officers. Below you will find some of the major reasons that law 

enforcement officers give. Using the scale that follows, please rate 

each reason for how large a part it played in your decision to pursue a 

career in law enforcement. Circle the number that best reflects your 

opinion about how important each reason was to you at the time of 

your decision. 
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76

Reasons Unimportant

Somewhat 

Important

Very 

Important

Opportunities for 

advancement 1 2 3 4 5

Structured like the 

military (e.g., use of rank, 

command structure)

1 2 3 4 5

Good salary 1 2 3 4 5

Good retirement plan 1 2 3 4 5

Good health insurance 

benefits 1 2 3 4 5

The excitement of the 

work 1 2 3 4 5

It provides an opportunity 

to help people in the 

community

1 2 3 4 5

Job security 1 2 3 4 5

To fight crime 1 2 3 4 5

The prestige of the 

profession 1 2 3 4 5

You work on your own a 

lot; have a good deal of 

autonomy

1 2 3 4 5

The variety and nonroutine nature of the work 1 2 3 4 5

To enforce the laws of 

society 1 2 3 4 5

Good camaraderie with 

your co-workers 1 2 3 4 5

The job carries power and 

authority 1 2 3 4 5

To gain experience for 

another job 1 2 3 4 5

There was a lack of other 

job alternatives 1 2 3 4 5

Other job alternatives 

were not as interesting 1 2 3 4 5

If you, your friends, and/or relatives were victims of crime, please rate the 

following two reasons as well. Otherwise, select “N/A” for not applicable.

Because I had friends or 

relatives who were victims 

of crime

1 2 3 4 5

N/A (e.g., I do not have friends or relatives 

who were victims of crime)

Because I was a victim 

of crime

1 2 3 4 5

N/A (I was not a victim of crime)
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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

19. People sometimes obtain opinions from family members, friends, or 

professionals that influence their employment-related decisions. In 

the first column of the table that follows, you will find a list of people 

who could be a source of such opinions.

In the second column, please indicate all the people who offered an 

opinion when you were deciding whether to work in law enforcement 

by marking (X) the corresponding box for each person.

Only for the people who did offer an opinion (those for whom you 

marked a box), please answer the following questions:

•	 “Does or did this person work in law enforcement?” 

•	 “How much did this person support your decision to work in law 

enforcement?

If you did not seek advice from anyone, please select the last option, 

“No one.”
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

78

Relation

This person 

offered an 

opinion when 

I was making 

my decision 

on whether to 

work in law 

enforcement

Does or did 

this person 

work in law 

enforcement?

How much did this person support your decision to work in law enforcement?

Strongly 

Opposed Opposed Neutral Favored

Strongly 

Favored

Your biological father Yes No 1 2 3 4 5

Your step or adoptive father

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Your biological mother Yes No 1 2 3 4 5Your step or adoptive mother

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Your brother or sister Yes No 1 2 3 4 5Another relative Yes No 1 2 3 4 5Your spouse or partner Yes No 1 2 3 4 5Your girlfriend or boyfriend

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5
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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

Relation

This person 

offered an 

opinion when 

I was making 

my decision 

on whether to 

work in law 

enforcement

Does or did 

this person 

work in law 

enforcement?

How much did this person support your decision to work in law enforcement?

Strongly 

Opposed Opposed Neutral Favored

Strongly 

Favored

Your friend—same generation

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Your friend—older generation (10+ years)

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Your co-worker Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Your professor, teacher, or counselor

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Someone with professional expertise in law enforcement

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

A member of the clergy or other adult from your place of worship

Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

Other (please describe): Yes

No 1 2 3 4 5

No one
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

80

20. At how many law enforcement agencies did you apply for a position in 

the last 12 months? 

___ agencies

21. Was your current law enforcement agency your first choice among 

those you considered?

❒ Yes 

❒ No 

❒ Don’t know

22. On average, how long will (or does) the commute take from your primary residence to your law enforcement agency? Estimate your commute time to the agency’s primary location or headquarters, not the 

training academy (if different).

___ minutes

23. What first prompted you to consider working as a police officer 

or sheriff’s deputy in your current law enforcement agency? In other 

words, what information sources and potential influences motivated 

you to contact your current employer? Please mark (X) all that apply.

❒ Newspaper ad

❒ Magazine/journal ad

❒ Radio ad

❒ Television ad

❒ Internet ad

❒ Billboard

❒ Posters

❒ Mass mailing

❒ Career fair
81

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

❒ Community organization

❒ High school outreach

❒ Explorer and/or cadets program

❒ College outreach

❒ College internships

❒ Military installation (e.g., Transition Assistance Program)

❒ Open house at the police department

❒ Walk-in

❒ Experience working with the agency in another capacity

❒ Referral from friend or family member not in law enforcement 

❒ Referral from friend or family member who currently works or 

once worked in a different law enforcement agency

❒ Referral from friend or family member who currently works or 

once worked in the same law enforcement agency 

❒ Other (please describe:) ___________________________

❒ Don’t know

24. Using the scale that follows, please indicate how much you agree or 

disagree that the following factors influenced your decision to accept 

employment at your current law enforcement agency.
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Strongly 

Disagree Disagree

Neither Disagree 

Nor Agree Agree Strongly Agree

Size of agency 1 2 3 4 5First agency to offer me a position 1 2 3 4 5Location of city or agency 1 2 3 4 5Affordability of housing 1 2 3 4 5Salary 1 2 3 4 5Retirement plan 1 2 3 4 5Health insurance benefits 1 2 3 4 5Vacation time 1 2 3 4 5Reputation of the agency 1 2 3 4 5Friend or family member works or worked for this agency 1 2 3 4 5Variety in assignments 1 2 3 4 5Agency was willing to send me to academy 1 2 3 4 5Time between initial application and entering academy 1 2 3 4 5Cost of uniforms, gear, and supplies needed for academy 1 2 3 4 5Work hours available to me, such as 10- or 12-hour shifts 1 2 3 4 5I was already with the agency in another capacity 1 2 3 4 5Other (please describe:) ___________________________ 1 2 3 4 5
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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

25. So far, you have been asked to discuss why you were interested in law 

enforcement in general and your current law enforcement agency in 

particular. When people make a decision about their employment, 

they often consider not only the “pros” or benefits but also the “cons” 

or disadvantages of that particular line of work. When you were 

deciding whether to pursue a career in law enforcement, what were 

the main “cons” or disadvantages that came to mind? Please mark 

(X) those that apply to you.

❒ Insufficient salary

❒ Insufficient health insurance benefits

❒ Long hours

❒ Shift work

❒ Personal health or medical limitations

❒ Difficulty meeting fitness requirements

❒ Difficulty meeting family obligations (e.g., child care, 

elder care)

❒ Threat of injury

❒ Threat of death

❒ Other career interests

❒ Family members’ negative views regarding law enforcement

❒ Friends’ negative views regarding law enforcement

❒ Negative portrayal of law enforcement in the media

❒ Military-like qualities such as use of rank and command 

structure

❒ Abuse of power or excessive force used by law enforcement 

officer(s)

❒ Perceived corruption within law enforcement agencies

❒ Perceived favoritism within law enforcement agencies

❒ Other reason (please specify:) ___________________
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

84

26. Think of a good friend or a family member who is close to you in 

age, but has opted not to pursue a career in law enforcement. To the 

best of your knowledge, which of the following reasons help explain 

why he or she has not pursued a law enforcement career? Please mark 

(X) those that apply to the good friend or family member you are 

thinking about.

❒ Insufficient salary

❒ Insufficient health insurance benefits

❒ Long hours

❒ Shift work

❒ His/her health or medical limitations

❒ Criminal record

❒ Difficulty meeting fitness requirements

❒ Difficulty meeting family obligations (e.g., child care, 

elder care)

❒ Threat of injury

❒ Threat of death

❒ Other career interests / already has a satisfying career 

❒ Personal negative views regarding law enforcement

❒ Family members’ negative views regarding law enforcement

❒ Friends’ negative views regarding law enforcement

❒ Negative portrayal of law enforcement in the media

❒ Military-like qualities such as use of rank and command 

structure

❒ Abuse of power or excessive force used by law enforcement 

officer(s)

❒ Perceived corruption within law enforcement agencies

❒ Perceived favoritism within law enforcement agencies

❒ Other reason (please specify:) ___________________
85

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

27. To improve law enforcement recruiting, police officers and sheriff 

deputies have suggested the following actions or incentives. Using the 

scale that follows, please rate how effective you believe each action or 

incentive would be in helping to improve recruiting in your current 

law enforcement agency.

Ineffective Effective

Very 

Effective

Better or more information 

about what the job actually 

entails

1 2 3 4 5

Better or more information 

about the community in which 

the agency is located

1 2 3 4 5

Higher starting salary 1 2 3 4 5

Signing bonus 1 2 3 4 5

Financial assistance for 

uniforms and other necessary 

supplies

1 2 3 4 5

Financial assistance for gym 

membership 1 2 3 4 5

Financial assistance to 

purchase a home (e.g., 

financing)

1 2 3 4 5

Financial assistance for 

job commute (e.g., public 

transportation voucher, 

mileage allowance)

1 2 3 4 5

Relocation assistance 

(e.g., information regarding 

community, housing search 

assistance, temporary housing)

1 2 3 4 5

Tuition assistance 1 2 3 4 5
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

86

Ineffective Effective

Very 

Effective

Better pension or retirement 

benefits 1 2 3 4 5

Free training and exercise to 

help meet physical standards 1 2 3 4 5

Opportunities for professional 

development (e.g., 

management, investigations, 

technology)

1 2 3 4 5

Flexible work schedule 1 2 3 4 5

Choice in job duties or 

assignments 1 2 3 4 5

Child care during academy 1 2 3 4 5

Child care during regular 

employment 1 2 3 4 5

Better health insurance 

coverage

1 2 3 4 5

More vacation time 1 2 3 4 5

Opportunities for extended 

leave without pay 1 2 3 4 5

Other (please describe:) _________________________
87

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

Volunteering and Other Non-Work Activities

The final section of the survey includes questions about how you typically 

spend your free time, to include volunteer work, hobbies, and Internet use.

28. In the last year, have you done any volunteer activities through or for 

an organization? 

❒ Yes 

❒ No  Skip to Question 31

29. How many different organizations have you volunteered through or 

for in the last year? 

___ organizations

30. What type(s) of organization(s) are they? Mark (X) all that apply.

❒ Religious organization

❒ Children’s educational, sports, or recreational group

❒ Other educational group

❒ Social and community service group

❒ Civic organization

❒ Cultural or arts organization

❒ Environmental or animal care organization

❒ Health research or health education organization

❒ Hospital, clinic, or healthcare organization

❒ Immigrant/refugee assistance

❒ International organization

❒ Labor union, business, or professional organization 

❒ Political party or advocacy group

❒ Public safety organization

❒ Sports or hobby group

❒ Youth services organization

❒ Other reason (please describe:) ___________________
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

88

31. What types of activities do you regularly engage in during your free 

time? Mark (X) all that apply.

❒ Team sports

❒ Tennis

❒ Golf

❒ Hiking/camping

❒ Hunting/shooting

❒ Fishing

❒ Biking

❒ Jogging

❒ Swimming

❒ Martial arts

❒ Yoga

❒ Fitness classes or exercise at local gym

❒ Attending professional sporting events

❒ Attending concerts

❒ Attending movies in theatres

❒ Watching movies at home on DVDs

❒ Watching television

❒ Listening to the radio

❒ Playing video games

❒ Playing a musical instrument

❒ Reading

❒ Shopping

❒ Cooking

❒ Other reason (please describe:) ___________________

32. Which of the following ways have you used the Internet?

❒ E-mail

❒ Downloading music

❒ Downloading podcasts

❒ Gaming

❒ Online shopping

❒ Online job search
89

Appendix A: Survey Instrument

❒ Online information searches (e.g., driving directions, weather 

forecasts, directory assistance)

❒ News and current events sites

❒ Social networking sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook)

❒ Other (please describe:) ___________________

33. In the last year, how many times have you accessed the Internet? 

❒ Did not access within the past year

❒ Once or twice

❒ 3–5 times

❒ 6–11 times (less than monthly)

❒ Less than weekly (1–3 times month) 

❒ Less than daily (1–3 times week) 

❒ Almost daily (over 100 times)

❒ Daily or more (over 200 times)

34. Is there anything you would like the RAND research team to know 

about choosing a law enforcement career, your experience as a law 

enforcement officer recruit, or law enforcement officer recruiting in 

general? Please use the space below for any comments that you would 

like to share related to the topics covered in this survey or about the 

survey itself.

Thank you again for your time and input.

Please place your completed survey in the self-addressed, 

stamped envelope that you received and drop it in any 

U.S. Postal Service mailbox.
90

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.1a

Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part 1

Characteristic All

Sex Race/Ethnicity

Men Women White Asian Black Hispanic

N 1,619 1,332 282 846 46 296 388

Average age 27.8 27.7 28.7 27.4 30 29.6 27.7

Female (%) 16 0 100 13 19 28 17

Married (%) 29 30 26 32 24 25 25

Parents of children 

under 18 (%)

31 30 38 26 16 54 36

Asian (%) 3 3 3 0 100 0 0

Black (%) 14 12 24 0 0 100 0

Hispanic (%) 25 24 27 0 0 0 100

White (%) 56 58 45 100 0 0 0

Other (%) 3 3 2 0 0 0 0

Multiracial (%) 6 6 6 3 8 1 13

Immigrant family (%) 26 25 30 13 92 18 49

Bachelor’s degree or 

higher (%)

41 39 51 46 37 37 32

Prior active duty 

military (%)

18 20 9 16 32 27 20

Currently serving in 

Guard or Reserve (%)

6 6 6 5 4 12 5

Prior law enforcement 

experience (%)

24 24 21 23 38 34 20
91

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.1b

Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part 2

Characteristic All

Age Immigrant Family College Graduate

25 and 

Younger

26 and 

Older No Yes No Yes

N 1,619 593 995 338 1,281 1,044 780

Average age 27.8 23.6 31.0 27.6 28.4 27.6 28.2

Female (%) 16 12 19 14 19 13 20

Married (%) 29 10 43 30 27 31 26

Parents of children 

under 18 (%)

31 9 47 32 29 36 25

Asian (%) 3 3 3 0 9 3 2

Black (%) 14 8 17 15 9 14 12

Hispanic (%) 25 20 28 17 47 29 19

White (%) 56 65 50 66 27 52 62

Other (%) 3 3 3 1 7 2 4

Multiracial (%) 6 7 5 6 6 6 5

Immigrant family (%) 26 18 32 0 53 23 30

Bachelor’s degree 

or higher (%)

41 39 42 39 48 0 100

Prior active duty 

military (%)

18 11 25 20 15 24 12

Currently serving in 

Guard or Reserve (%)

6 5 6 6 5 6 7

Prior law enforcement 

experience (%)

24 21 25 24 23 26 20
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

92

Table B.1c

Descriptive Statistics of Key Groups of Interest, Part 3

Characteristic All

Military 

Experience

Prior Law 

Enforcement 

Experience

No Yes No Yes

N 1,619 1,250 369 1,173 446

Average age 27.8 27.4 29.7 27.5 29.0

Female (%) 16 18 8 17 14

Married (%) 29 26 40 27 35

Parents of children under 

age 18 (%)

31 26 54 29 41

Asian (%) 3 2 4 2 4

Black (%) 14 12 20 12 20

Hispanic (%) 25 24 26 26 21

White (%) 56 58 48 57 54

Other (%) 3 3 1 4 1

Multiracial (%) 6 6 7 6 6

Immigrant family (%) 26 27 21 30 25

Bachelor’s degree or higher (%) 41 44 26 43 35

Prior active duty military (%) 18 0 100 16 28

Currently serving in Guard 

or Reserve (%)

6 0 31 5 8

Prior law enforcement experience 

(%)

24 21 35 0 100
93

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.2

Demographics of New Recruits: Age, Sex, Family 

Status, and Religion

Percentage, Average, 

or Range

Age (average) 27.3

Age (80% range) 22.5–30.5

Female 16%

Marital status 

Never married 65%

Now married 29%

Previously married 6%

Have children under 18 31%

Religion 

Non-Catholic Christian 31%

Catholic 36%

None 27%

Other 6%
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

94

Table B.3

Race, Ethnicity, and Heritage of New Recruits

Percentage

Race/ethnicity (primary)

Asian 3

Black 14

Hispanic 25

White 56

Other 3

Multiracial 6

Family immigration history

All born in the United States 45

One or more grandparents are immigrants 19

One parent is an immigrant 8

Both parents are immigrants 12

Recruit is an immigrant 14

Do not know 2

Birthplace

In the United States 86

Outside the United States 13

U.S. territory 1
95

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.4

Educational Attainment of New Recruits

Percentage 

Education

High school graduate, or 

equivalent

11

Less than 1 year 7

More than 1 year, no degree 22

Associate’s degree 18

Bachelor’s degree 38

Master’s degree 3

Professional or doctoral degree 0

Field of study

Criminology, criminal justice, 

or law enforcement 

43

Liberal arts or humanities 16

Business 14

Social science 8

Math or engineering 6

Pre-med, nursing, or other 

health care field 

6

Other 5

Natural or physical science 2

Pre-law or law school 1
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

96

Table B.5

Military Service of New Recruits

Percentage or 

Average

Military service

Never served in military 79

Reserve or National Guard training only 2

Active duty in the past 12 months 7

Active duty more than 12 months ago 12

Years of service (average) 5.9 years

Currently in Reserve/Guard 6

Service componenta (of those with military service)

Relative composition of 

the U.S. militaryb (%)

Active

U.S. Marine Corps 29 13

U.S. Army 28 36

U.S. Navy 25 22

U.S. Air Force 11 21

U.S. Coast Guard 1 3

Reserve

U.S. Army Reserve 14 12

U.S. Army National Guard 11 21

U.S. Navy Reserve 9 4

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve 7 2

U.S. Air Force Reserve 4 4

U.S. Air National Guard 4 6

U.S. Coast Guard Reserve 1 1

a Percentages under service branch add up to more than 100 percent because 34 percent 

of respondents reported serving in multiple branches. 

b The relative composition of the military represents what we would expect if there was 

no relationship between service branch and being a new recruit.
97

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.6

Prior Employment of New Recruits

Percentage

Prior employment

For-profit 42

Local government 15

State government 2

Federal government 2

Active-duty military 4

Nonprofit 3

Student 26

Self-employed 3

Unemployed 6

Prior law enforcement experience

This agency 5

Local government 7

State government 1

Federal government 1

Military police 4

Private 5

Other 2

None 76
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

98

Table B.7

Percentage Reporting the Importance of Various Reasons for 

Deciding to Pursue a Career in Law Enforcement 

(1 = unimportant, 3 = somewhat important, and 5 = very important)

Reason 1 2 3 4 5 N/A

Opportunities for advancement 1 3 14 27 51 4

Structured like the military 19 20 29 18 11 4

Good salary 3 6 28 29 31 3

Good retirement plan 1 1 10 25 60 4

Good health insurance benefits 1 1 12 28 54 3

The excitement of the work 1 3 12 28 52 4

It provides an opportunity to help people 

in the community 

0 0 9 30 57 3

Job security 1 1 8 25 62 3

To fight crime 1 2 18 33 42 3

The prestige of the profession 2 6 21 32 35 4

You work on your own a lot; have a good 

deal of autonomy 

7 17 28 30 15 3

The variety and nonroutine nature of 

the work 

1 4 18 35 39 3

To enforce the laws of society 0 3 24 39 30 3

Good camaraderie with your co-workers 0 2 15 41 36 5

The job carries power and authority 13 20 31 21 12 3

To gain experience for another job 38 20 18 10 10 4

There was a lack of other job alternatives 55 17 14 7 4 4

Other job alternatives were not as 

interesting 

27 12 26 19 12 3

Because I had friends or relatives who 

were victims of crime

 13 7 11 10 7 51

Because I was a victim of crime 11 5 7 6 5 66
99

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.8

Number of Law Enforcement Agencies Applied to in the 

Past 12 Months

Number of Agencies

0 1 2 3 4 5 6+ N/A

Percentage applying to 

that many agencies 18 41 19 12 5 2 1 3

Table B.9

Current Agency Was First Choice Among Those Considered

Response

Yes No Don’t Know N/A

Percentage 77 19 3 2

Table B.10

Commute Time from Residence to 

Work (in minutes)

Average 40

80% range 15–90
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

100

Table B.11

Sources That First Prompted Recruits to Consider 

Working as a Police Officer or Sheriff’s Deputy in Their 

Current Law Enforcement Agency

Source Percentage

Newspaper ad 9

Magazine/journal ad 1

Radio ad 3

Television ad 5

Internet ad 18

Billboard 5

Posters 4

Mass mailing 1

Career fair 8

Community organization 1

High school outreach 1

Explorer and/or cadets program 3

College outreach 3

College internships 3

Military installation 3

Open house at police department 2

Walk-in-office 2

Experience working with the agency in another capacity 10

Referral from friend or family member not in law enforcement 12

Referral from friend or family member who works/worked in a 

different law enforcement agency 

21

Referral from friend or family member who works/worked in 

the same law enforcement agency 

41

Other 13

Don’t know 6
101

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.12

Factors That Influenced Recruits’ Decision to Accept Employment at 

Their Current Law Enforcement Agency 

(1 = strongly agree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = strongly agree)

Factor 1 2 3 4 5 N/A

Retirement plan 1 1 14 37 47 0 

Reputation of the agency 2 3 16 33 47 0 

Health insurance benefits 1 2 13 39 45 0 

Location of city or agency 4 4 22 31 38 0 

Variety in assignments 2 4 23 36 35 0 

Agency was willing to send me to 

academy 

 5 6 27 28 34 0 

Size of agency 4 4 30 34 27 0 

Friend or family member works or 

worked for this agency 

 19 8 27 22 24 0 

Vacation time 3 8 32 35 22 0 

Salary 4 10 25 41 20 0 

First agency to offer me a position 15 14 30 24 17 0 

Time between initial application 

and entering academy 

 10 12 43 19 16 0 

Work hours available to me, such as 

10- or 12-hour shifts 

 15 14 42 18 12 0 

Affordability of housing 17 17 43 14 9 0 

Cost of uniforms, gear, and supplies 

needed for academy 

 24 17 42 11 6 0 

I was already with the agency in 

another capacity 

 43 15 32 5 5 0 

Other 4 1 91 2 2 0 
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

102

Table B.13

Percentage Reporting Having Done Any 

Volunteer Activities Through or for an 

Organization in the Past Year

Response

Yes No N/A

Percentage 35 62 3

Table B.14

Number of Organizations That Recruits Report Having Done 

Volunteer Activities Through or for in the Past Year

Number of Organizations

1 2 3 4+ N/A

Percentage volunteering for 

that many organizations 48 32 12 3 5
103

Appendix B: Description of Survey Responses

Table B.15

Kinds of Organizations That Recruits Report Having 

Volunteered for in the Past Year

Organization Type Percentage

Religious organization 10

Social and community service group 10

Children’s educational, sports, or recreational group 9

Sports or hobby group 6

Youth services organization 4

Public safety organization 3

Hospital, clinic, or healthcare organization 3

Health research or health education organization 2

Civic organization 2

Cultural or arts organization 1

Environmental or animal care organization 1

International organization 1

Labor union, business, or professional organization 1

Political party or advocacy group 1

Immigrant/refugee assistance 0

Other educational group 2

Other 6
Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits

104

Table B.16

Types of Activities That Recruits Report Regularly 

Engaging in During Their Free Time

Activity Percentage

Watching movies at home on DVDs 65

Watching television 63

Attending movies in theaters 57

Jogging 46

Fitness classes or exercise at local gym 44

Listening to the radio 43

Team sports 37

Attending professional sporting events 34

Playing video games 34

Reading 34

Cooking 30

Shopping 25

Attending concerts 22

Fishing 18

Hiking/camping 17

Swimming 17

Biking 15

Hunting/shooting 15

Golf 13

Playing a musical instrument 10

Martial arts 9

Tennis 5

Yoga 5

Other 12
105

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November 2010

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