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  Recruitment, Hiring & Retention                    
		                                Hiring Incentives for Recruitment

Comprehensive benefits package
	Signing bonus
	Academy training & Paid salary during training
	Tuition reimbursement & student loan forgiveness
	Flexible schedule and potential for overtime
	Being part of a department with a good reputation
	Relaxed screening process and updated policies on tattoos, background investigations
	Professional development and leadership opportunities

Recruitment, hiring and retention of the best law enforcement officers is critical for a safe, thriving community. A diverse and inclusive agency workforce that reflects the community residents leads to increased trust, collaboration, and transparency. The COPS Office is working with other DOJ components and the Administration to help agencies evolve their recruitment and hiring process through new initiatives, policy changes and best practices implemented by innovative agencies.

Publications

Dispatch Articles

Podcasts

Other Resources

OJP Resources





Recruitment and Retention

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**Law Enforcement Best Practices: Lessons Learned from the Field**
The Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing noted that the quality of American policing depends upon the quality of its officers and stressed the importance of hiring individuals who reflect the diversity and values of the community - and also have the character and social skills to positively engage with it. This was emphasized in a later task force meeting with President Obama, who asked the COPS Office to explore promising practices and policies for hiring and retaining officers who meet these requirements. In response, the COPS Office and the Police Executive Research Forum hosted the Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer forum. This report details the discussions and recommendations of the forum, which included experts in police standards, screening, and hiring. Their insights and recommendations in areas such as psychological screening, educational requirements, promotion policies, and methods for retaining the best officers can be of great value to Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) commissions, HR, and agency executives.

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**Conversations with Rural Law Enforcement Leaders: Volume 2**
Rural law enforcement agencies face increasing rates of crime and disorder - and often have dwindling resources with which to combat them. To discuss critical issues in rural policing, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) has convened a listening session series with rural law enforcement stakeholders to discuss rural law enforcement's common concerns, challenges, and needs. The results of the second round of these sessions, which took place in seven states in late 2019 and early 2020, are summarized here.

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**Recruiting and Retaining Officers in Small and Rural Agencies**
In December 2019, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services held a day-long forum to discuss the challenges of law enforcement recruitment and retention and specifically focused on these issues in relation to smaller and more rural law enforcement agencies. The 32 participants included police chiefs, captains, lieutenants, academic experts, researchers, and agency directors of state police standards. The forum's small size allowed for a wide-ranging discussion that focused on the qualities that make an effective police officer, an in-depth examination of why people leave a department, the most significant challenges to recruiting and retaining officers, and a brainstorming session on the range of strategies these departments use to attract and keep officers. The result was an exchange of ideas and success stories that reflected the unique regional and size differences between the departments.

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**CRI-TAC Spotlight: Recruitment and Retention for Workforce Diversity**
The CRI-TAC Spotlight series is committed to advancing knowledge through sharing tools, resources, and information developed for the law enforcement field as a result of customized training and technical assistance delivered by CRI-TAC. This guide highlights and summarizes publications that provide the law enforcement field reference and resources for promoting workforce diversity.

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**CRI-TAC Spotlight: Roundtable on Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention**
The West Greenwich (Rhode Island) Police Department requested assistance through the Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC) to host an event for local law enforcement agencies from Rhode Island and the surrounding areas to discuss regional challenges in recruitment, hiring, and retention. On January 29, 2020, CRI-TAC hosted Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention: National and Local Trends, a roundtable discussion in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. This document summarizes and annotates the discussions from that roundtable, supplemented by a list of additional resources.

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**Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention Resources for Law Enforcement CD-ROM**
Nationwide, it has been increasingly difficult to find and retain talented police officers. This CD is designed to assist chiefs and sheriffs, as well as other executives, in finding, training, and retaining qualified staff.

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**Police Recruitment and Retention for the New Millennium**
This guidebook summarizes for police practitioners lessons on recruiting and retaining divers, effective workforces. It provides a means for local officials to identify what has been tried elsewhere and what might be applicable in their own communities. It is a broad analysis of issues confronting many agencies and how these have developed over time. Each agency will face unique circumstances that it must consider in workforce planning: this report can provide guidance on relevant lessons learned elsewhere.

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**Law Enforcement Recruitment in the 21st Century: Forum Proceedings**
The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing identified recruitment, training, and retention as priorities for the future of law enforcement. Because of their importance to advancing community and police relations, the task force included them in the first pillar - Trust and Legitimacy - of their final report. And in a follow-up meeting with task force members, the President asked the COPS Office to continue to explore new hiring and policies and practices. In response, the COPS Office hosted the Law Enforcement Recruitment in the 21st Century forum with Strategic Applications International. This report covers the discussions of the forum's participants, drawn from law enforcement, civil rights, and other stakeholder groups. The forum's goals were to identify ways to improve recruitment programs, practices, and strategies with a special emphasis on diversity; to better understand how the image of law enforcement impacts recruiting efforts; and to provide action steps for developing and enhancing recruitment strategies.

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**Innovations in Police Recruitment and Hiring - Hiring in the Spirit of Service**
As the issue of recruiting and retaining quality law enforcement officers makes national headlines, this report helps fill the void by telling the story of how five sites selected to participate in a COPS-funded project entitled "Hiring in the Spirit of Service," implemented significant change into existing hiring processes to recruit and select law enforcement officers that reflect a more service-oriented field. This document has relevance for all practitioners seeking to enhance their department's recruitment and hiring practices. Specifically, this publication discusses how each site progressed to meet its goals of hiring service-oriented law enforcement recruits and it describes the challenges encountered along the way as well as lessons learned that other agencies and practitioners can replicate.

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**Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment**
The RAND Center on Quality Policing convened a national summit on police recruitment and retention in the contemporary urban environment in June 2008. This summit, supported by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the National Institute of Justice, brought nearly 60 participants to the RAND Washington Office to discuss the challenges of recruiting and retention of officers. Speakers discussed changing police workforce issues, strategies being employed, lessons that could be learned from other organizations such as the military, and in-depth analyses of police recruiting and retention in selected cities. This document summarizes presentations, discussions, and opinions offered by panelists at the summit.

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**Today's Police and Sheriff Recruits: Insights from the Newest Members of America's Law Enforcement Community**
This report provides the results of a recruit assessment conducted by RAND, including both findings about the overall 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 results are also featured in the report.

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**Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit**
The Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit developed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) comprises four reports, each focusing on a different area of recruitment.

**Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit CD**
Recruiting and staffing challenges, affected by military call-ups, retirements, homeland security obligations, and increased competition, exist for many law enforcement agencies across the United States. The Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit CD developed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) comprises four reports, each focusing on a different area of recruitment.

Hiring

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**Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer: Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategies for Success**
The Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing noted that the quality of American policing depends upon the quality of its officers and stressed the importance of hiring individuals who reflect the diversity and values of the community - and also have the character and social skills to positively engage with it. This was emphasized in a later task force meeting with President Obama, who asked the COPS Office to explore promising practices and policies for hiring and retaining officers who meet these requirements. In response, the COPS Office and the Police Executive Research Forum hosted the Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer forum. This report details the discussions and recommendations of the forum, which included experts in police standards, screening, and hiring. Their insights and recommendations in areas such as psychological screening, educational requirements, promotion policies, and methods for retaining the best officers can be of great value to Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) commissions, HR, and agency executives.

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**Selecting the Best Analyst for the Job**
The rapid growth in applications and usage of crime mapping and analysis in recent years has increased job opportunities for new analysts. As crime analysis has become an established profession, there is a need for consensus about the specific knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics and the extent of formalized training necessary for new analysts. Through various discussion channels, including in-house forums, focus groups, visits with crime analysis units, and participation at annual crime mapping conferences, the Police Foundation's Crime Mapping and Problem Analysis Laboratory recognized the importance of creating hiring standards and a systematic and comprehensive hiring process for selecting highly capable crime analysts. This publication and accompanying CD-ROM focuses on defining the job of a crime analyst and on a model procedure for selecting the best possible crime analyst for your agency.

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**Establishing Appropriate Staffing Levels for Campus Public Safety Departments**
IACLEA engaged Strategic Direction LLC to conduct a study of appropriate campus public safety staffing levels. It conducted a thorough review of existing literature on this topic, convened focus groups to identify staffing issues and considerations, and administered a comprehensive survey of U.S. campus public safety departments. This publication identifies the factors and considerations that impact staffing, including the characteristics of a particular campus, the geographic setting (urban, rural, suburban), number of students, faculty and staff, programs and/or facilities that have security implications, venues and athletic programs that affect campus public safety staffing, and other considerations.

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**A Performance-Based Approach to Police Staffing Allocation**
A Performance-Based Approach to Police Staffing and Allocation summarizes the research conducted by the Michigan State University team. It highlights the current staffing allocation landscape for law enforcement agencies and provides a practical step-by-step approach for any agency to assess its own patrol staffing needs based upon its workload and performance objectives. Additionally, it identifies some ways beyond the use of sworn staff that workload demand can be managed, and discusses how an agency's approach to community policing implementation can affect staffing allocation and deployment. This guidebook will be particularly useful for police practitioners and planners conducting an assessment of their agency's staffing need, and for researchers interested in police staffing experiences and assessment methods.




Dispatch Articles

Increasing Your Department’s Womanpower: Tips for Recruitment and Retention
April 2022

Policing While Black and Female: Five Voices from the Field
March 2022

Reframing the Police Staffing Challenge: Strategies for Meeting Workload Demand
January 2022

Evidence-Based Policing: A Foundation for Strategic Recruitment
December 2021

Women Leading the Way in Tribal Law Enforcement
November 2021

Unsworn and Civilian Hiring
September 2021

Law Enforcement Recruitment Strategies: Reaching Out to Youth
July 2021

30x30 Initiative: Why we need more women in policing and how to achieve it
March 2021

Fit for Duty: The Women’s Leadership Academy
March 2021

Promising Practices on Recruitment and Hiring
September 2020

A Powerful Recruiting Incentive Child Care Support for Law Enforcement Parents
September 2020

Enhancing Recruitment and Retention in Anna, Texas
September 2020

What Makes a Good Alaska State Trooper?
September 2020

Ten Recruiting Tips for Finding Good Officers
September 2019




Podcasts - The Beat

**November 2018**

Gender Diversity in Policing

Episode Transcript

**October 2018**

Gender Diversity in Policing

Episode Transcript

**June 2015**

The Role of Labor Management in Law Enforcement

Episode Transcript



Other Resources on Recruitment and Hiring

Charleston PD Recruitment Video

CRI-TAC

Census of Youth Law Enforcement Programs

30x30 Initiative
 

Office of Justice Programs Resources

Promising Practices in Police Recruitment, Selection, Training, and Retention 2020 **(Video)**
	Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment 2009
	Cop Crunch: Identifying Strategies for Dealing with the Recruiting and Hiring Crisis in Law Enforcement 2005
	Hiring and Keeping Police Officers
	Hiring and Retention Issues in Police Agencies: Readings on the Determinants of Police Strength, Hiring and Retention of Officers, and the Federal COPS Program – (2001)
	Hiring and Retention of State and Local Law Enforcement Officers, 2008 - Statistical Tables
	Recruiting and Retaining Women Police Officers – The Message Your Organization Sends Matters | National Institute of Justice
	Women in Policing: Breaking Barriers and Blazing a Path
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