1 Program on Police Consolidation and Shared Services Chapter Head Here

INTEGRATING CIVILIAN STAFF INTO 

POLICE AGENCIES

William R. King, PhD

Sam Houston State University

Jeremy M. Wilson, PhD

Michigan State University

Integrating Civilian Staff into Police Agencies

INTEGRATING CIVILIAN STAFF INTO 

POLICE AGENCIES

William R. King, PhD 

Sam Houston State University

Jeremy M. Wilson, PhD 

Michigan State University
This project was supported by grant number 2012-CK-WX-K023 awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained herein 

are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the 

U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services 

should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues. 

The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the date of publication. Given 

that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the COPS Office can 

vouch for their current validity. 

Recommended citation:

King, William R., and Jeremy M. Wilson. 2014. Integrating Civilian Staff into Police Agencies.

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

ISBN: 978-1-935676-66-9 

Published 2014
iii

Contents

About the Program on Police Consolidation and Shared Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Historical Context of Civilian Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Contemporary Roles for Civilian Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Providers of routine administrative and operational tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Uniformed first responders to nonviolent calls for service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Crime scene processors and forensic crime lab employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Crime victim service providers in the field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Analysts, researchers, and planners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Community liaisons and public information officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Command staff and strategic leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Benefits and Costs of Using Civilian Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Six Promising Practices in Hiring and Deploying Civilian Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

About the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1

About the Program on 

Police Consolidation and Shared Services

Although consolidating and sharing public safety 

services has received much attention in recent years, 

such efforts are not new. Moreover, despite the many

communities that have in one way or another consolidated or shared these services, the process of 

doing so has not become any easier. In fact, to say

that changing the structural delivery of public safety 

services is difficult or challenging is an understatement. At the core of contemplating these transitions,

regardless of the form, is the need for open, honest, 

and constructive dialog among all stakeholders. Key

to this dialog is evidence derived from independent 

research, analysis, and evaluation

To help provide such independent information, the 

Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice, 

with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Service

(COPS Office), established the Program on Police 

Consolidation and Shared Services (PCASS) to help 

consolidating police agencies, and those considering 

consolidating, increase efficiency, enhance quality of 

service, and bolster community policing. Together,

they also developed resources, such as publications, 

videos, and the PCASS website, to assist communities exploring options for delivering public safety 

services. These resources do not advocate any

particular form of service delivery but rather provide 

information to help communities determine for themselves what best meets their needs, circumstances, 

and desires

PCASS provides a wealth of information and research 

on structural alternatives for the delivery of police 

services, including the nature, options, implementation, efficiency, and effectiveness of all forms of 

consolidation and shared services. PCASS resources

allow local decision makers to review what has been 

done elsewhere and gauge what model would be 

best for their community

For more information on PCASS and to access its 

resources, please visit http://policeconsolidation

msu.edu
2

Historical Context of Civilian Employees

Historians generally credit Boston in 1838 and New 

York City in 1844 with creating the first full-time, 

vocational, permanent police agencies in the United 

States (Lane 1980, 8). Other major cities soon followed suit and created their own police agencies

(King 1999, figure 1). As Klockars (1985, 12) writes,

sworn personnel are distinguished by their “general 

right to use coercive force by the state within the 

state’s domestic territory” (see also Bittner 1971)

Because not all police work required such coercive 

power, police agencies could also employ individuals 

who did not have arrest powers: i.e., civilian polic

employees. Agencies could also enlist the skills of

volunteers

1

 (For discussions of police volunteers, 

see Hilal 2003; King 2005; and Sundeen and 

Siegel 1986.)

1. See also “Volunteers in Police Service,” http://www.

policevolunteers.org/.

However, police administrators resisted civilianization because it could reduce the ability of police 

administrators to reward political cronies with sworn 

officer positions (King 1999). Therefore, civilian police

employees were exceedingly rare prior to the 1930s, 

though the lack of systematic data back then on 

police agency employment makes historical trends 

difficult to discern (Uchida and King 2002)

Historical research, the bulk of which dates from the 

1960s and 1970s, demonstrates that civilian police 

employees have a long tradition in the United States 

with the number and proportion of civilian employees 

steadily increasing in the mid-1930s and through the 

1970s and 1980s (see Chess 1960; Fogelson 1977; 

Heininger and Urbanek 1983; Schwartz et al. 1975

Police agencies used civilian employees to perform 

various tasks such as dispatch, record keeping, and 

clerical duties

The economic recession of 2008 resulted in difficult 

budget decisions for many local law enforcement 

agencies. Those in the most dire straits explored

layoffs, furloughs, and even disbanding their organization. Those in less dire straits investigated alternative methods of management and service deliver

For example, agencies re-explored the civilianization 

of policing, which remains one of the most frequent 

methods agencies use to continue providing police 

service to the community while still tending to the 

pressing management and administration needs of 

an agency

As of 2008, 33 percent of full-time local police 

employees were civilians, and 77 percent of state and 

local law enforcement agency employees were sworn 

personnel (Reaves 2011)

2

2. This estimate is based on 17,985 local law enforcement 

agencies (including special agencies and sheriff’s offices, 

among others) reported in the 2008 BJS Census of State 

and Local Law Enforcement Agencies.

Yet individual police agencies differ greatly in the proportion of civilian police 

employees. For example, 65 percent (140 employees) of the 215 full-time employees in the Mansfield

(Texas) Police Department were civilians while 
3 Historical Context of Civilian Employees

only 0.3 percent (four employees) of 1,210 full-time

employees in the Montgomery County (Maryland) 

Police Department were civilians. Altogether in 2008,

local police agencies employed 368,669 full-time 

civilian employees and 56,278 part-time civilian 

employees (BJS 2008)

As of 2008, 33 percent 

of full-time local police 

employees were civilians. With this history in mind, Integrating Civilian Staff 

into Police Agencies describes issues surrounding 

the employment and use of civilian employees by 

police agencies in the United States. This publication

illustrates the experiences police agencies have had 

using civilian police employees in delivering police 

service, and it is intended primarily for police executives, planners, and employees as well as government officials who oversee police agencies

While not focused solely on consolidation per se, 

this publication does provide lessons to practitioners 

seeking to improve the delivery and efficiency of 

police service by providing a description of the current state of police civilianization in the United States, 

the roles civilian employees may play in a police 

agency, the ways in which police agencies may use 

civilian employees for alternative service delivery, and 

the benefits and costs associated with civilianizing. In

particular, this publication discusses the following: 

 The definition of police civilians and trends in 

their use

 The contemporary nature of police civilianization 

and innovative ways that some agencies are 

using civilians

 Seven different roles for civilian police employees, 

such as clerical and dispatch duties, first responders, and strategic leadership positions

 Impediments and facilitators to civilianization

 Benefits of civilian employees, including the 

increased employment flexibility of civilians (contracts, hiring, dismissal, speed of deployment, 

reassignment, etc.), the special skills civilians may

provide, and the potential cost savings 

 Costs of civilian employees, in terms of liability, 

training, supervision, agency culture, and 

agency morale 

 General recommendations for agencies considering the increased use of civilian employees 

In the near future, as police agencies seek to free 

sworn officers for other duties or even as agencies 

adopt new duties civilian personnel may perform, 

the number of both sworn and civilian employees 

may expand
4

Contemporary Roles for Civilian Employees

From routine tasks to high-level command positions, 

police agencies can use civilian employees in management and administration positions and in service 

delivery to the community. Often, civilians reside outside the formal authority structures of police agencies

(Kostelac 2008), except in the case of civilian commanders. Having civilian leaders and employees can

have unique benefits and costs

Currently, U.S. police agencies use civilians for eac

of the following task areas:

 Providers of clerical, accounting, reception, dispatch, maintenance, custodial, detention, and 

technical duties 

 Uniformed first responders to nonviolent calls 

for service

 Crime scene processors and forensic crime 

lab employees

 Crime victim service providers in the field

 Analysts, researchers, and planners

 Community liaisons and public information officers

 Command staff and strategic leaders

Providers of routine administrative and 

operational tasks

Historically, police civilians have provided a wide 

range of tasks that vary by agency

3

3. The authors could not find a comprehensive study that 

addressed the range of duties civilians can perform.

Civilians often 

served as call takers and dispatchers (Shernock 1988) 

as well as clerical workers providing typing, transcription, filing, and record keeping. In some agencies,
5 Contemporary Roles for Civilian Employees

civilians handled accounting, budgeting, and finance

Civilians also performed custodial chores and maintained facilities, vehicles, or equipment, and some 

agencies hired civilians for detention duties (Schwartz 

et al.1975). Likewise, today some agencies use civilians to provide technical skills, such as maintainin

and repairing computer networks, hardware, and 

software; operating computers; programming; and 

repairing and calibrating technological equipment 

such as Breathalyzers (Forst 2000). Considering this

historical context, many agencies may view such tasks 

as relatively traditional for civilians

Uniformed first responders to nonviolent 

calls for service

Some police agencies use civilian employees to serve 

as first responders to noncritical or nonviolent calls 

for police services, such as calls for animal control, 

“cold” burglary scenes, automobile accidents, and 

calls reporting theft and vandalism. Using civilians as

first responders for certain tasks dates back to at least 

the early-1970s (Schwartz et al. 1975

Responsibility for animal control rests with the local 

police in High Point, North Carolina, where the 

police department employs two civilians for animal 

control services (HPPD 2013). Since the late-1990s,

the Naperville (Illinois) Police Department has used 

civilians to direct traffic and issue parking tickets (King 

2009). In Reno, Nevada, civilians direct traffic and

handle 75 percent of cold crime reports (King 2009)

The Concord (California) Police Department uses civilian employees located in offices (not in the field) to 

follow up on leads and take crime reports (King 2009)

Crime scene processors and forensic crime 

lab employees

Increasingly, the practice of forensic science requires 

advanced training and academic degrees. As a result,

police agencies that operate their own forensic 

crime labs use civilian employees to perform many 

forensic duties

In the past, many agencies typically had sworn first 

responders or specialty officers process crime scenes

However, over time, agencies have turned to civilian 

employees to process their crime scenes and gather 

physical evidence. For example, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas, switched responsibility for the

processing of crime scenes from sworn police officers 

to civilians. In Austin, the civilian Crime Scene Unit

employees wear uniforms and carry radios

Crime victim service providers in the field

Civilian employees can provide services to victims of 

crime. Victim advocates and victim service providers

(VSPs) can help crime victims understand the process 

of investigation and prosecution and can connect 

them with compensation funds and other services 

such as counseling. In some cases, VSPs provide

education on issues such as avoiding repeat victimization. In Virginia, 21 percent of VSPs are employed

by police agencies (Neff et al. 2012). Police agencies from Rockville, Maryland, and North Las Vegas

Nevada, use VSPs
Integrating Civilian Staff into Police Agencies 6

Analysts, researchers, and planners

Civilian employees can work as analysts, researchers, 

or planners. In larger agencies, they can work in specialized research and planning units (RPUs) or crime

analysis units (CAUs) (Dawson and Williams 2009; 

Haberman and King 2011).These civilians often bring

specialized skills or training in areas such as statistical 

analysis, mapping, computer programming, budgeting, and crime analysis

Some of these RPUs and CAUs employ a mix of 

sworn and civilian employees. For example, the deputy director of planning in the Houston (Texas) Police

Department is a civilian, but some members of his 

staff are sworn officers (including a police sergeant)

Community liaisons and public 

information officers

Police agencies face increasing pressure to communicate and develop trust with various communities, and 

some of these communities comprise recent immigrants not fluent in English. The traditional model for

policing ethnic groups calls for a police agency to 

recruit and train as police officers members of that 

ethnic group. Thus, a police agency gains officers

fluent in the language, which enables it to learn the 

cultural norms of that group and possibly to increase 

its legitimacy with that group

However, many agencies have realized that bilingual 

members of ethnic groups, especially groups that 

have only recently appeared in numbers in the United 

States, may have more attractive career options than 

working in law enforcement. This is evidenced by

some departments offering additional “bilingual pay” 

for officers who speak multiple languages (Wilson 

et al. 2010). Also, some immigrant groups originat

from countries where citizens do not trust the police

Therefore, recruiting qualified and bilingual members 

of ethnic groups can be difficult, if not impossible

Alternatively, some police agencies have successfully employed members of ethnic groups as civilian 

employees. It is easier to find and hire qualified civilian employees than to find, hire, and train individuals

for sworn positions. For example, during the 1980s,

Lowell, Massachusetts, experienced large numbers of 

immigrants settling from Southeast Asia (King 2009)

In addition to trying to recruit police officers from 

these newly established communities, the Lowell 

Police Department hired two members of these ethnic communities, who were compensated as civilian 

police employees but served in the community as 

liaisons between the department and the community. These liaisons monitored their communities and

communicated local concerns to the superintendent 

of the department. The liaisons also communicated

messages and information from the department to 

the community. From all accounts, the civilian liaisons
7 Contemporary Roles for Civilian Employees

in Lowell were successful at improving relations 

and communications between the community and 

police department. 

Public information officers (PIOs) often serve as a 

point of contact between a police agency and the 

media and public. PIOs can also provide media 

advice and coordination efforts for police agencies 

(Handelman and Domanick 2012). Estimates of the 

percentage of PIOs who are civilians range from 

about one in 10 to four in 10 (Chermak and Weiss 

2005; Motschall and Cao 2002; Surette 2001). 

While PIOs can engage in a range of activities, 

increasingly they counsel police management 

about publicity and public relations (Motschall and 

Cao 2002). PIOs have increased the scope of their 

activities as more civilians have filled such positions 

(Surette 2001). Some police agencies rely heavily on 

civilian PIOs. For example, the Knoxville (Tennessee) 

Police Department employs 28 civilian PIOs, who 

work with the public and media and are on-call 24 

hours a day (King 2009). 

Command staff and strategic leaders

Not all civilian employees serve in ancillary or support 

roles. Some civilians are upper-division commanders 

or hold strategic leadership positions within police 

agencies. Civilians who serve in command positions 

most often lead the administrative services section of 

a police agency. Using civilians in command positions 

is novel in an environment where most authority is 

traditionally derived from a rank position within a 

hierarchy of sworn officers. 

Yet examples exist of high-level civilian commanders 

overseeing and supervising sworn officers in large 

U.S. police agencies. In 2003, the Los Angeles Police 

Department appointed a civilian to manager of its 

Counter-Terrorism and Spcial Operations Bureau 

(Martin 2009). Also, in the early-2000s, the head of 

administrative services in the Lowell (Massachusetts) 

Police Department was a civilian (King 2009).The 

Chicago Police Department appointed a civilian as 

deputy superintendent of its Administrative Services 

Bureau, and this civilian became responsible for 

managing a budget of more than $1 billion and for 

the Personnel, Information Services, Records 

Management, and Research and Development 

Divisions (John Jay College of Criminal Justice 2009). 

In 2013, the Glendale (California) Police Department also appointed a civilian as a commander over 

administrative services (GPD 2013).
8

Benefits and Costs of Using Civilian Employees

Benefits

Civilian employees can offer police agencies a 

number of benefits. First, they are less expensive

than sworn officers in terms of salary, retirement, and 

benefits (see Chess 1960; Lewin and Keith 1976; Martin 2009; Schwartz et al. 1975). A study of 13 polic

agencies in the 1970s found that salaries averaged 

“23 percent less for civilians than for officers and 

overhead about 10 percent less” (Schwartz et al

1975, vii). A second 1970s study found civilian salaries and fringe benefits to be about one-fourth the

cost for sworn officers. However, studies or data that

address the costs of civilian employees since 1981 in 

the United States could not be found, but one Canadian study projected that the benefits and salaries for 

civilian employees were 67 percent of that for sworn 

officers in 2006 (Griffiths et al. 2006

Second, civilians enable sworn officers to concentrate on a narrower range of functions (Guyot 1979; 

Schwartz et al. 1975). For example, civilians ca

help agencies multiply their force by allowing more 

officers to be on the street or in field services. In

addition, civilian employees can free sworn officers 

from dispatch duties and administrative tasks and 

make officers available to return to patrol or other 

assignments that directly affect communities. Finally,

civilians may augment agency work in newly created 

positions (Guyot 1979)

Third, civilians bring specialized skills or formal training 

that regular sworn officers might not possess, such as 

formal engineering, legal, or scientific training (Chess 

1960). These skills could be valuable in contemporary

police agencies for investigations and accident reconstruction, for crafting and revamping policies, or for 

computer programming and forensics. Civilians can

also provide practical skills such as mechanical skills, 

computer hardware or software programming abilities, 

and even janitorial and maintenance talents. Some

agencies may employ civilians who are multilingual or 

have specific cultural competencies valuable to the 

agency’s community outreach efforts

Fourth, civilians can help improve community relations, a benefit especially important for community 

policing efforts (Kostelac 2008). Police agencies

can hire civilians who are more representative of 

the population without the limitations imposed by 

the physical or background requirements for sworn 

officers. Indeed, civilian employees have long helped

police agencies increase their gender diversity (Lewin 

and Keith 1976, 81, table 6). Civilian employees

strengthen ties with the community because they 

serve as ambassadors during their nonwork time (see 

Crank 1989; Skolnick and Bayley 1986). Civilians also

bring the community’s perspectives to the police 

agency, and “the ‘outsiders’ view on law enforcement 

may provide the perspective necessary to bridge the 

gap with the community” (Martin 2009, 24). Civilians

in a police agency may de-escalate police-community 

antagonisms and provide a “humanizing effect” on 

police officers (see Schwartz et al. 1975, 14, fn. 

Last, civilian employees often provide managers with 

greater flexibility for personnel assignments (Guyot 

1979). In many states, civilian employees are exempt

from civil service requirements and are rarely unionized. Therefore, civilians are easier to hire, transfer,

and even fire. The process for authorizing the hiring

and training of a new recruit class of sworn officers 

is usually measured in months while that of hiring 

civilians is usually measured in weeks
9 Benefits and Costs of Using Civilian Employees

All these reasons contribute to the usefulness 

of civilian employees. Comparatively, empirical

research generally finds that more affluent agencies 

(usually measured by departmental budget) employ 

a greater proportion of civilians (see Heininger and 

Urbanek 1983; Kostelac 2008) and that agencies 

facing budget cuts sometimes lay off civilians instead 

of sworn officers (Kostelac 2008)—providing further 

evidence of the greater flexibility civilian employees 

offer to agencies

Costs

Employing civilians is not without possible detriment

Sworn officers or their unions may resist increased 

civilianization because sometimes they see civilians 

as “depriving a member of the force of a desirable 

detail or assignment” (Chess 1960, 594). Agencies sometimes hold station-house assignments for

officers who are relieved of street duty or injured. If

these positions are civilianized, they are no longer 

available for officer reassignment
Integrating Civilian Staff into Police Agencies 10

Officers might resist civilians if their assignments run 

contrary to the stereotypes of appropriate civilian 

assignments. In particular, sworn officers may resent

civilians in positions that officers fear compromise 

sensitive information, that interfere in sworn officers’ 

exercise of discretion, and that disrupt operations 

(Forst 2000, 47). In some cases, this resentment

might turn into rivalries between sworn officers and 

civilians and into antagonism toward civilian employees (Chess 1960). Resistance by sworn officers might

take various forms, as in the case of the Rockford, 

Illinois, police union’s resistance to a civilian overseeing administrative services (Curry 2012)
11

Six Promising Practices 

in Hiring and Deploying Civilian Employees

It may be useful for agencies that are considering 

the use or expansion of civilians to seek out peer 

agencies that have employed civilians in similar 

capacities to learn about the positive and negative 

implications of their use. In the meantime, a law

enforcement agency considering hiring more civilian 

employees or assigning civilians to new agency tasks 

should carefully follow these six promising practices, 

which can help agency administrators plan for 

success and avoid potential pitfalls:

1. ASSESS THE NOVELTY OF THE 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE AGENCY.

In many cases, an agency might add a few civilians to 

handle tasks that are quite similar to already civilianized tasks. For example, civilianizing the records

section when the human resources section is already 

civilianized would probably be a simple transition

But civilianizing a leadership position, crime scene 

personnel, or creating civilian first responders 

requires prudence and building support among key 

constituents (see no. 3

2. DETERMINE THE TRUE COSTS 

AND BENEFITS FOR THE AGENCY.

Civilians are often less expensive in terms of their 

salary and benefits. Yet there may be less visible

costs associated with hiring civilians. These costs can

include buying special equipment, making provisions 

for access to secure facilities, and negatively effecting department culture and morale. For example, if

sworn officers view civilians as a threat and this results 

in substantial conflict within an agency, the costs may 

be unacceptable for some agencies. Yet civilians may

offer benefits that could improve culture and morale 

(see no. 1

3. BUILD SUPPORT AMONG 

KEY CONSTITUENTS.

Police leadership should explain the planned change 

to line officers, management, and law enforcement 

unions. Agencies should be transparent in terms of

why they plan to civilianize positions, but civilianizing 

can often be presented as beneficial to sworn 

officers because it can relieve them of mundane 

or less-desirable tasks, such as record keeping or 

responding to vehicular accidents. Or perhaps the

civilians can provide services that the agency cannot 

currently deliver, such as advanced crime analysis, 

computer support, or liaisons with ethnic communities

4. DEVELOP A PLAN TO TRAIN 

CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES.

Training should be delivered initially and as in-service 

training (Chess 1960). In some cases, civilian employees should be educated about the unique aspects of

policing and ways to navigate organization culture 

and chain of command. Employees should receive

training on safety considerations, the importance of 

keeping documents and records secure, ways to handle confidential information, and other issues important to the agency. Simply, civilians won’t receive the

benefit of academy and field training; therefore, an 

agency must provide an appropriate level of training 

and orientation as well as a career ladder

5. ESTABLISH PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT 

CRITERIA FOR CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES.

Agencies should evaluate their employees regularly 

and provide them with feedback. Crafting useful

performance criteria is especially important when the 

position is new for the agency

6. DETERMINE THE PROCEDURES FOR 

DEMOTING, FIRING, AND HANDLING 

GRIEVANCES ABOUT OR FROM 

CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES. 

As with any employee classification, agencies 

should take care to ensure that proper personnel 

policies and procedures are in place to account 

effectively for adverse consequences associated with 

civilian employees
12

Conclusion

As for any organizational change, police decision 

makers considering the new or expanded use 

of civilians must assess for themselves whether 

the benefits outweigh the costs in their unique 

circumstances. The lessons and promising practices

noted throughout this publication provide a first-step 

in framing such a process
13

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15

About the COPS Office

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 

(COPS Office) is the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local

territory, and tribal law enforcement agencies through 

information and grant resources

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes 

organizational strategies that support the systematic 

use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, 

to proactively address the immediate conditions that 

give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social 

disorder, and fear of crime

Rather than simply responding to crimes once they 

have been committed, community policing concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the 

atmosphere of fear it creates. Earning the trust of the

community and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety enables law enforcement to 

better understand and address both the needs of the 

community and the factors that contribute to crime

The COPS Office awards grants to state, local, territory, and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire and 

train community policing professionals, acquire and 

deploy cutting-edge crime fighting technologies, 

and develop and test innovative policing strategies

COPS Office funding also provides training and 

technical assistance to community members and local 

government leaders and all levels of law enforcement. The COPS Office has produced and compiled

a broad range of information resources that can help 

law enforcement better address specific crime and 

operational issues, and help community leaders better understand how to work cooperatively with their 

law enforcement agency to reduce crime

 Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested more 

than $14 billion to add community policing officers 

to the nation’s streets, enhance crime fighting technology, support crime prevention initiatives, and 

provide training and technical assistance to help 

advance community policing

 To date, the COPS Office has funded approximately 125,000 additional officers to more than 

13,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement 

agencies across the country in small and large 

jurisdictions alike

 Nearly 700,000 law enforcement personnel, community members, and government leaders have 

been trained through COPS Office-funded training 

organizations

 To date, the COPS Office has distributed more 

than 8.57 million topic-specific publications, training curricula, white papers, and resource CD

COPS Office resources, covering a wide breadth of 

community policing topics—from school and campus 

safety to gang violence—are available, at no cost, 

through its online Resource Center at www.cop

usdoj.gov. This easy-to-navigate website is also th

grant application portal, providing access to online 

application forms


Civilianization of policing is one of the most frequent methods agencies use to continue providing service 

to the community while still tending to the pressing management and administration needs of an agency

Integrating Civilian Staff into Police Agencies describes issues surrounding the employment and use of 

civilian employees by police agencies in the United States. This publication discusses not only innovative

ways that some agencies are using civilians but also impediments and facilitators to civilianization and the 

costs and benefits of increasing civilianization. It also provides general recommendations for agencies

considering the increased use of civilian employees

U.S. Department of Justi

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

145 N Street NE

Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details about COPS Office programs, 

call the COPS Office Response Center at 800-421-6770

Visit the COPS Office online at www.cops.usdoj.gov

Michigan State University

220 Trowbridge Road

East Lansing, MI 48824

www.msu.edu

ISBN: 978-1-935676-66-9

e03145632

Published 2014