A RAND INFRASTRUCTURE, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENT CENTER

Center on Quality Policing

Conference Proceedin

Police Recruitment and Retentio

in the Contemporary 

Urban Environmen

A National Discussion of Personnel Experienc

and Promising Practices from the Front Line

Jeremy M. Wilson • Clifford A. Grammich

Sponsored by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the National Institute of J

COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
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iii

Preface

Recruitment and retention of officers is an increasing challenge for police agencies. Pending 

baby-boom-generation retirements, military call-ups, local budget crises, competition for qualified applicants, and changing work preferences of younger generations exacerbate this challenge in a time of increasing crime and homeland security demands in American cities. Many 

urban police agencies report particular difficulty in recruiting minority and female officers.

To help address these challenges, the RAND Center on Quality Policing convened a National 

Summit on Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment. This 

summit, supported by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the National Institute of Justice, brought nearly 60 participants to the RAND 

Washington Office in June 2008. 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 report summarizes the presentations, discussions, and opinions offered by panelists at 

the summit. While we cannot verify the accuracy of the opinions and analyses discussed, 

presenters had the opportunity to review our representation of their material and comments 

to ensure that we summarized their points correctly. It is worth noting that the discussions 

about current experiences represent the situation the law enforcement agencies found themselves in as of June 2008. The downturn in the economy in late 2008 and early 2009 has had 

a profound impact on the budgets of many local agencies, with cuts deep enough to impede 

their ability to maintain their current workforces, let alone grow them. Some agencies have 

furloughed or laid off police officers, while others have instituted hiring freezes. Conversely, 

many of those fortunate enough to be able to hire new officers have found a bounty of qualified applicants due to the lack of hiring elsewhere and the volume of those laid off from 

other industries. Despite these changes, the lessons provided in this report are still of value, 

because most of the challenges discussed at the summit remain and will likely become more 

important over time, irrespective of fluctuations in the economy. This report should be of 

interest to persons interested in police recruiting and retention specifically and in recruiting and retention of other “first responders” more generally. The briefings presented at the 

summit are available on the web sites of RAND’s Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse 

(http://www.rand.org/ise/centers/quality_policing/cops/) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/).
iv Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

The RAND Center on Quality Policing

This research 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). The center’s mission is to help guide the efforts of police agencies to improve 

the efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness of their operations. The center’s research and analysis focus on force planning (e.g., recruitment, retention, training), performance measurement, 

cost-effective best practices, and use of technology, as well as issues in police-community 

relations. 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, courts and corrections, and 

public safety—including violence prevention, policing, substance abuse, and public integrity. 

Questions or comments about this report should be sent to the conference organizer, Jeremy 

Wilson (jwilson@msu.edu). Information is available online about the Safety and Justice Program (http://www.rand.org/ise/safety) and CQP (http://cqp.rand.org). Inquiries about CQP 

or about research projects should be sent to the following address:

Greg Ridgeway

Director, Safety and Justice Program

RAND Corporation

1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138

Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138

310-393-0411, x7734

Greg_Ridgeway@rand.org

The CQP web site also provides access to RAND’s Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse. 

For more information on the clearinghouse, write to the director, Jeremy Wilson, or call 

him at 517-353-9474.
v

Contents

Preface .......................................................................................................... iii

Acknowledgments .......................................................................................... vii

1. The Changing Context of Police Recruitment and Retention ............................. 1

Purpose and Organization of This Report .......................................................... 1

The Changing Police Workforce ...................................................................... 2

2. Current Practices ........................................................................................ 5

Recruiting in a Highly Competitive Job Market .................................................. 5

Recruiting for a Rapidly Growing Community ................................................... 6

Rebuilding After a Catastrophe ....................................................................... 8

Strategic Recruiting in a Large Department ...................................................... 10

Hiring for Community Needs ....................................................................... 11

Struggling to Retain Diversity ....................................................................... 12

Improving Recruitment and Retention Simultaneously ....................................... 13

3. Improving Practices ................................................................................... 15

Improving Recruiting ................................................................................... 15

Recruiting Lessons from the Military .............................................................. 16

Recruiting Without Resources ....................................................................... 17

Improving Retention ................................................................................... 19

4. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................. 21

Summary of Discussions............................................................................... 21

Implications for Meeting Personnel Needs ........................................................ 22

Appen

A. Summit Agenda ........................................................................................ 25

B. Summit Participants.................................................................................. 29

References .................................................................................................... 39

vii

Acknowledgments

The success of this national summit would not have been possible without the assistance of 

many organizations and individuals. We would like to thank the U.S. Department of Justice’s 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the National Institute of Justice for providing the support necessary for us to host the event and make the results available. Likewise, 

the summit could not have occurred without the people who offered their insights as presenters, panelists, and attendees. Erin Dalton and Neil DeWeese deserve special recognition for the 

effective logistical and substantive support that underpinned this event. Finally, we would like 

to thank RAND’s publication team and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 

for their editorial assistance in the preparation of this document.

1

1. The Changing Context of Police Recruitment and Retention 

Human resources constitute perhaps the most important element of the work of police organizations. All police organizations face the challenge of achieving good results from the personnel they have. This process has become more complicated in recent years as violence and 

homeland security needs have increased in many communities. 

Police organizations increasingly compete with each other and with organizations such as the 

military or private security firms for the pool of qualified applicants. The supply of such applicants has been reduced in recent years because a higher proportion of candidates have health 

problems such as obesity or substance abuse. Moreover, younger generations are less likely to 

have a taste for the regimented life of police officers than older generations had. 

At the same time, retirement among older officers is reducing the number of officers and 

making it imperative for police agencies to retain as many as possible. Military call-ups may 

also reduce the number of police in agencies with large numbers of reservists. 

Police agencies today have fewer resources on which to draw to recruit and retain personnel 

and to execute their work. Yet their responsibilities are expanding to include homeland security, immigration, cybercrime, and human trafficking, and there is even an increase of traditional duties in areas of their communities that have rising levels of crime and violence. 

In their workforce planning, police agencies generally have not applied known and demonstrated tenets of personnel management to the particulars of their occupation. Few empirical 

lessons can provide law enforcement agencies with evidence about what works and what does 

not, for use in planning. Law enforcement agencies typically lack the time, resources, and 

expertise to collect and assess the data so that they can develop lessons for their own personnel 

recruitment and retention. 

Purpose and Organization of This Report 

Recognizing the needs of the law enforcement community, the RAND Center for Quality 

Policing has developed and gathered research on police recruitment and retention issues. To 

help disseminate these—but more important, to provide an opportunity for the research, law 

enforcement, and policymaking communities to learn about the current personnel experiences 

of other agencies—RAND, with the support of the Office of Community Oriented Policing 

Services and the National Institute of Justice, convened a National Summit on Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment. Speakers at the summit, held 

in June 2008 at the RAND Washington Office, discussed the changing police workforce, 
2 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

experiences in varying jurisdictions, and promising practices, including lessons from military 

experiences. 

This document summarizes the presentations, discussions, and opinions offered by panelists at 

the summit. In Chapter 2, we summarize what panelists presented about their experiences in 

several jurisdictions around the country. In Chapter 3, we summarize what participants said 

about such practices for recruitment and retention. In Chapter 4, the final chapter, we summarize some concluding remarks about continuing research needs in and resources for police 

recruitment and retention. We also highlight key recruitment and retention lessons discussed 

throughout the report. Appendix A presents the summit agenda, and Appendix B contains 

biographies of the panelists. To provide additional context for the chapters that follow, we next 

discuss changes in police workforce issues and how these are shaping recruitment and retention challenges. 

The Changing Police Workforce 

The current “cop crunch,” rather than being a relatively recent development, may have its 

roots in the previous decade. Some law enforcement agencies, according to Bruce Taylor of 

the Police Executive Research Forum, began reporting a decreasing number of recruits in the 

1990s. Specific causes cited for this decrease included increased competition from the private 

sector—specifically, opportunities offered by the strong economy in that decade—and negative media coverage of police work. Small numbers of minority and women applicants were 

a particular concern to police agencies seeking to become as diverse as the communities they 

served. Inflexible schedules, long hours, low pay, salaries that have not kept pace with inflation, and opportunities elsewhere also contributed to problems of retention faced by local law 

enforcement agencies. 

At the same time, the nature of police work was changing, leading to changes in the characteristics of the candidates most desirable to local police agencies, as well as of those who might 

find police work appealing. Ellen Scrivner of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice noted 

that police candidates of the 1970s and 1980s were identified as “responsibility absorbers” with 

prior military experience, who were educated through their departments to follow a “reactive” policing cycle of respond, control, and return to service. By contrast, the candidates of 

today are more likely to need a stronger focus on strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, 

an ability to collaborate with the community, and a greater capacity to use technology and 

problem-solving skills often acquired through a college education before joining a department. 

Instead of looking at the situation as a crisis, Scrivner argued that such conditions should be 

framed as a real opportunity for police organizations to change and to better meet the needs of 

the “new-generation” employee. (For more on these findings, see Scrivner, 2006.) 

Laura Miller of the RAND Corporation told the summit that community policing is now the 

central role for most police departments. Such work requires officers who are more focused on 

problem-solving and who have considerable interpersonal communication skills. And since 

the September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, local law enforcement agencies 

have also had an expanding role in homeland security. This new role has included conducting 

community threat assessments, providing intelligence, enforcing immigration laws, training 
The Changing Context of Police Recruitment and Retention 3

more within and across agencies, and supporting federal authorities in protecting infrastructure such as harbors, airports, dams, and utilities. (For more on these findings, see Raymond 

et al., 2005.) 

Given these increasing demands, Taylor told the summit, it is not surprising that many agencies are having difficulty hiring to authorized levels. Increasing responsibilities also mean that 

fewer resources remain for recruitment, leaving most police agencies no more than modest 

budgets for recruiting. Protracted application procedures also reduce the likelihood that a 

worthy candidate will ultimately be hired. But despite the common challenges police agencies 

face in recruiting, there is, Taylor told the conference, little joint recruitment effort. (For more 

on these findings, see Taylor et al., 2006.) 

As a result, Miller explained, there is a need for national leadership to deal with police personnel issues. This would include establishing long-term requirements for police in homeland 

security and providing resources and training for that role, as well as assessing continuing 

youth interest in and qualification for police and other “first responder” occupations. Such 

leadership would be essential to help police agencies manage the growing competition for the 

supply of suitable young applicants for police work (Figure 1.1). 

Miller noted that police agencies may benefit from the military’s experience in recruitment 

and retention. The available information includes analyses of survey and demographic data 

that have helped the military identify and respond to trends in the number of likely qualified

Figure 1.1

Sources of Competition Against Local Law Enforcement Agencies for Suitable Applicants 

Local law

enforcement 

• Police

• Sheriffs

• State Patrol

Private

contractors

• DynCorp

• Halliburton

Military 

• Active

• Reserve

• National Guard

• Clean criminal record

• Little to no drug use

• Willing to work outdoors and

 in dangerous environments

• Healthy and physically fit

• H.S. diploma or better

• Average to high intelligence

Homeland security 

• FBI

• CIA

• Secret Service

• U.S. Marshals

• U.S. Coast Guard

• Immigration

Firefighters

Desirable youth

labor base

RAND CF261-1.1
4 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

candidates and applicants. It also includes military efforts to retain personnel through initiatives such as general pay increases and additional pay for special duties, educational benefits for 

those the agencies wish to retain, faster promotion for the most qualified individuals, and lateral movement programs to address staffing problems in specific areas. Police agencies may also 

learn from each other about adopting more relevant standards, offering preparation courses 

for desirable yet underqualified candidates, and implementing wider use of civilian employees, 

retired officers, and volunteers. 

The effectiveness of recruitment initiatives can vary by local conditions and needs. In the next 

chapter, we review what representatives of several agencies across the nation said about their 

recruitment and retention needs and the challenges they face in meeting them.
5

2. Current Practices 

Local law enforcement agencies must provide public safety in a wide range of environments, 

so they also must recruit and retain officers in a variety of environments. Some large agencies, 

because of their size, must hire continuously. Others may do so in response to rapid growth 

in their areas. Still others may do so in response to a particular initiative such as the need for 

community policing officers. Some agencies may struggle to retain diverse forces. An agency 

may even find itself needing to rebuild its force after a calamity. 

Representatives from six urban law enforcement agencies across the nation shared their experiences in recruiting and retaining personnel. In the following, we review what these representatives had to say about challenges to recruitment and retention in their forces and how they have 

tried to meet them. These include

•	 Recruiting in a highly competitive job market: Arlington, Virginia

•	 Recruiting for a rapidly growing community: Las Vegas, Nevada

•	 Rebuilding after a catastrophe: New Orleans, Louisiana

•	 Strategic recruiting in a large department: New York, New York

•	 Hiring for community needs: Oakland, California

•	 Struggling to retain diversity: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

•	 Improving recruitment and retention simultaneously: Washington, D.C. 

Recruiting in a Highly Competitive Job Market 

M. Douglas Scott told the RAND summit that on becoming chief of the Arlington County 

Police Department in 2003, he found that the department was below its authorized strength. 

This, he said, was a result of adding authorized positions but using the funds to pay for other 

programs. Scott also faced internal and external pressures to staff these positions. Internally, he 

needed to fill specialized positions within the department. Externally, the community expected 

to have the number of officers authorized for the force. 

The police department in Arlington County, a community of 203,000 with an estimated 

daytime population of 300,000, is now at its authorized strength of 366 sworn officers. The 

department also reflects much of the diversity of the community, having 43 African-American, 

29 Hispanic, 10 Asian, and 63 female officers. To attain and maintain these numbers, the 

department has had to compete with both federal law enforcement agencies concentrated in 

the area and neighboring jurisdictions offering higher salaries. Local law enforcement agencies 
6 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

in the area also have a requirement of 60 college credit hours for new hires, with no waiver for 

military or other police service. 

The primary staffing challenge for the department in recent years, Scott said, has been a 10 

percent annual attrition rate. Attrition occurs for both unique and more typical reasons. Location of the department in the Washington area, Scott noted, makes it a “breeding ground” for 

federal law enforcement agencies, something the department knows it cannot change but that 

it still tries to control by making the decision to take a federal job tougher for its employees. 

A more typical challenge is the increasing number of officers who are eligible for retirement. 

Scott noted that while there have been less than a dozen retirements annually in the department in recent years, the number of officers eligible for retirement is growing all the time. At 

present, about 50 of the 366 officers in the department are eligible for retirement, meaning, he 

said, that “at any time we realize that we could have another surge of departures.” 

The department has pursued a wide variety of recruitment strategies, with mixed success. 

Among the more successful strategies have been partnering with local criminal justice programs, administering monthly exams, offering recruitment bonuses to employees, establishing 

a department recruiting team, and developing recruitment videos and web sites. The department has also used several strategies to maintain its diversity. Outreach to the Washington 

gay community has sometimes been controversial for residents, but not for county leaders. A 

recruiting trip to Puerto Rico failed to recruit many officers, nor did it improve the department’s diversity. Other less successful recruitment efforts have included venues not designed 

for recruitment, such as parades and county fairs; job fairs that are far removed from the community; and a cadet program from which only two of five participants pursued a career in law 

enforcement. More successful initiatives in recruitment and retention have included dedicating 

staff to recruitment and increasing salary and retirement benefits. 

Recruiting for a Rapidly Growing Community 

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, with 2,417 officers, 776 corrections officers, 

and 1,610 civilian employees, is the seventh-largest police department in the United States. It 

is also one of the most rapidly growing. Since 2000, Clark County, Nevada, which the joint 

city-county agency serves, has seen its population increase from about 1.4 million to nearly 1.9 

million. This population growth, along with losses due to retirements and other attrition, has 

required the department to hire between 300 and 400 officers annually. Voters and the state 

legislature have approved sales tax increases that provide funding for an additional 1,200 officers over a 10-year period. 

To meet these goals, James Owens, deputy chief of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told the RAND summit, the department has a recruitment section that comprises one 

lieutenant, two sergeants, and eight officers. The department has worked with a Las Vegas 

advertising firm to create a recruitment plan based on surveys to learn what employees seek in 

a job. These surveys showed that the Internet was, by far, the means by which recruits most 

often learned of the department and its opportunities. The department’s recruitment web site 

(protectthecity.com) includes an online application process and videos on police academy life 

and law enforcement careers. Owens said the surveys also showed that potential employees are 
Current Practices 7

selfless, patriotic, and community-oriented, craving a career with structure and teamwork that 

is perceived to have impact on the community. The advertising firm helped the department 

design ads that would appeal to such candidates. The department has also sought to recruit 

officers through cadet programs and high schools dedicated to policing and similar work. 

To broaden its recruitment pool, Owens said, the department has developed recruitment councils for Hispanics, African-Americans, women, Asian-Americans, and military personnel. It 

pays $500 to officers for every new officer they recruit who enters the academy. It also conducts 

out-of-state testing in areas most likely to yield new officers, although the success of this effort 

has been mixed. 

Owens said the department is currently handling more than 8,000 applications annually. Of 

these, only about half take the initial test. Nearly 25 percent of those who take the initial test 

fail; nearly 15 percent of those who take the oral exam fail; and nearly 30 percent of those who 

take the physical agility test fail. Nearly 70 percent of those who proceed fail the second part 

of the evaluation, which comprises a background investigation, a polygraph examination, and 

medical and psychological examinations. 

Because of the high rate of attrition in the traditional testing process, the department recently 

asked its psychologist to develop a test that measures the probability of an applicant completing the process. The test includes 155 questions on employment, military service, driving history, education, personal finances, drug use, criminal activity, and other character issues. The 

department began administering this test in 2008. Its results, Owens said, allow the department to identify candidates who have at least an 85 percent chance of completing the background examination, saving the department considerable resources by eliminating those who 

are not suitable for hire earlier in the process. 

The department has also changed its academy processes to accommodate the greater number 

of candidates it must process. In the past, Owens said, the department had four academies per 

year. When recruiting efforts increased but the number of academies remained the same, the 

number of recruits per academy increased from about 50 to about 100. In response, the department shifted to a cadre system, based on Los Angeles Police Department practices, in which 

40 to 45 recruits were processed in each academy, with up to 10 academies per year. This has 

required the department to increase academy staffing from 18 to 33 officers, including an additional sergeant, with almost all teaching done by officers assigned full-time to the academy. The 

cadre system has also enabled the department to start a “recycle” program for recruits. Under 

this program, recruits who failed at a given point can “recycle” back to a new academy already 

in session rather than retest for the department. The department offers monthly testing for new 

candidates. The current failure rate at the academy is nearly 20 percent. The academy is documenting the reasons for recruits leaving and is searching for ways to address the problems. 

To ensure that its recruiting efforts are sufficient for helping the department achieve higher 

end strength, Owens said, the department is also seeking to improve retention. The lack of 

lateral transfers within Nevada helps retention efforts. The department also has several measures of its own for increasing retention, including starting salaries of approximately $50,000 

and maximum pay for patrol officers exceeding $80,000, educational and language incentives, 

shifts permitting frequent three-day weekends, growing promotional opportunities, modern 
8 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

facilities and equipment, input to department decisions, and favorable community perceptions 

of the department. 

Rebuilding After a Catastrophe 

Hurricane Katrina, one of the costliest and deadliest hurricanes ever to strike the United States, 

wreaked extraordinary havoc on New Orleans and its institutions. The city’s police department 

was not exempt from its effects. 

Warren Riley, superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, told the RAND summit 

that Katrina’s immediate effects on the city and the department included displacement of 90 

percent of residents, flooding of 80 percent of the city, and affliction with post-traumatic stress 

disorder of 30 percent of the officers. During the storm, there were also many widely reported 

desertions of officers from their duties, leading, Riley said, to 147 separations from service. 

All told, in the year following the storm, both authorized and actual end strength decreased by 

about one-sixth, or by about 300 officers. Many officers who were displaced by the storm were 

exposed to communities with better-paying law enforcement agencies, which they soon joined. 

Riley said that other local law enforcement agencies even recruited officers in New Orleans, 

offering signing bonuses of up to $10,000. 

Departures slowed but continued in the subsequent year, with, Riley noted, an additional 144 

separations. Two years after the storm, he said, 60 percent of the personnel who had been on 

the force prior to it were no longer with the department. Recruiting came to a virtual standstill 

after the storm, and even after it began to recover, fell short of the number of departures. 

Given these problems, the New Orleans Police Department asked the RAND Center on Quality Policing for an analysis of how to improve recruitment and retention. RAND researchers 

subsequently conducted analyses of existing personnel data and interviews with personnel of 

all ranks in the department, as well as representatives from the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Louisiana Recovery 

Authority. Drawing on experience assessing large personnel systems, RAND identified initiatives that could be implemented in New Orleans at the lowest cost. The RAND recommendations focused on five areas: compensation, career management and the promotion process, 

recruiting, the mix of officers and civilians in the department, and morale. (For more on the 

RAND analysis, see Rostker, Hix, and Wilson, 2007.) 

Prior to the RAND analysis, New Orleans police salaries were not competitive with other 

jurisdictions, particularly for higher-ranked officers. As Jeremy Wilson of the RAND Center 

on Quality Policing highlighted, police recruits in New Orleans received a salary comparable 

to that of recruits in the Houston Police Department about 300 miles west, but salaries at every 

other level in Houston were higher. The difference in annual salary was about $20,000 for sergeants, $25,000 for lieutenants, and $30,000 for captains. At the same time, the New Orleans 

Police Department’s pension program was generous but had little effect on recruiting or retaining personnel in the early stages of their career. RAND suggested shifting some resources from 

pensions toward salaries and possibly using housing as a component of compensation. 
Current Practices 9

An infrequent promotion process, Wilson explained, had led to problems with career progression and promotion. Promotion exams were supposed to be held every three years, but as many 

as five years typically passed between exams. Officers were promoted on the basis of their exam 

scores, but only as need arose over time. Several years could also pass between the taking of 

an exam and a promotion, during which time some ambitious and promising officers left the 

department. Such delays often meant the department had only those at the bottom of the list 

to promote. To correct these problems, RAND researchers suggested convening promotion 

boards every 12 to 18 months and qualifying on the promotion exam only those who would 

be needed to fill expected vacancies between more-frequent exams. Doing so would allow the 

most talented officers to progress rapidly and would foster a climate of “continuous learning” 

among those not being promoted but having a chance to try again. 

RAND Center on Quality Policing researchers found that New Orleans police recruiting 

efforts were passive. The department had no specific selection criteria for choosing the best 

recruiters. Uniformed officers assigned to recruiting spent most of their time recruiting those 

who had already volunteered and using the Internet and other tools to conduct background 

checks. Such tasks, the researchers noted, could be done just as well by civilian specialists. The 

RAND researchers recommended a more active approach to recruiting, including a schoolbased program for future officers, after-school and summer employment for students interested 

in police work, and post–high school employment as civilian department employees or support 

for college education in exchange for a commitment to the department. 

RAND researchers suggested that the department should reassess the assignment of officers as 

it adjusted to a post-Katrina size. They found some uniformed officers assigned to duties that 

civilians could do (such as background checks on recruits, as noted above). While recognizing 

that some officers may be assigned to “civilian” jobs in some special situations, the researchers suggested that such assignments should be temporary or made to accommodate a physical 

limitation. 

Wilson pointed out that morale was a topic in every conversation the RAND researchers had 

about the department. This demonstrated the need to make the department “whole” again 

as soon as possible, to repair the criminal justice system and the department’s infrastructure. 

While officer problems during Katrina and its aftermath were well publicized, the department 

also had “hero” stories it could publicize, both about the storm and in other situations. The 

researchers also suggested more concrete steps to boost morale, including a 10 percent pay 

increase, providing psychological services as needed, and police-recognition events. 

The initiatives the RAND researchers identified required the city to make tradeoffs between 

cost and timing. Some initiatives, such as shifting compensation from retirement to salaries, 

have no cost and a near-term impact. Others, such as improving recruiting, have a low cost but 

a more delayed effect. Rebuilding the police infrastructure would have a high cost and a nearterm impact, while establishing a police-oriented charter school would have a high cost but a 

more delayed impact. 

The city government acted quickly to implement many of the RAND recommendations. “One 

of the most significant things about the [RAND] partnership [was] to get the leadership of 

the city to really understand the needs of the police department,” Riley told the summit. “The 

mayor . . . and the city council, hearing it from RAND’s perspective . . . immediately bought 
10 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

into it, and it was smooth sailing from there.” State law prohibited shifting pension resources 

to salaries, but the city still substantially increased the pay of its officers and worked with the 

Civil Service Commission to increase the frequency of promotion exams. The department 

implemented educational incentives, including pay premiums of $1,000 annually for associate’s degree holders, $2,000 for a bachelor’s degree, and $3,000 for an advanced degree. Several local universities offered tuition reductions of from 25 to 100 percent for officers, and the 

Police and Justice Foundation provided tuition reimbursement for top-performing students as 

well. 

A “Get Behind the Badge” campaign helped both to improve recruiting and to increase department morale and community support for the department. Riley said the department had graduated 118 recruits through its academy in the past 18 months and planned two more academy 

classes in 2008. He noted that department attrition, which averaged 11 officers per month 

before Katrina, had been reduced to five officers per month. 

Strategic Recruiting in a Large Department 

The New York City Police Department has more than 35,000 officers. Such a large department, not surprisingly, must continually hire new officers. Indeed, Rafael Pineiro, chief of 

personnel for the department, told the RAND summit that between July 2002 and July 2008, 

the department hired more than 18,000 officers. 

In recruiting officers, Pineiro said, the department seeks to “sell and brand the NYPD’s image” 

as a “premier employer of choice.” Its efforts have sought to adapt to changing generational 

preferences, particularly by using technology at work and in more complex work such as 

counterterrorism. 

The department offers its exam at no fee. It requires test takers to be between 171⁄2 and 34 years 

of age (with some allowance for active military service). Candidates passing a written exam are 

subject to background investigation, drug screening, and physical and psychological exams. At 

the time of hire, a recruit must be a citizen at least 21 years old living in the city or surrounding 

counties and must have at least 60 college credits or two years of active military service. 

A period of low starting pay for officers, Pineiro said, had posed particular challenges to department recruiting. Starting base pay is currently $35,681 but had previously been $25,100, a 

level, Pineiro said, that resulted from negotiations with unions more interested in pay for those 

already on the force than for those joining it. Nevertheless, Pineiro added, the department still 

attracted more than 6,000 recruits during the time of low starting pay by emphasizing pay 

growth (to an average $82,000 for an officer at top pay with overtime and holiday earnings and 

shift differentials), benefits, and chances to advance, including opportunities to gain advanced 

degrees. About one in three officers in the department holds an investigative or supervisory 

position. The department also has more than 200 specialized units with work appealing to a 

variety of tastes. 

Pineiro said the department seeks recruits through college and university initiatives, military 

outreach, Internet recruiting, career fairs, diversity initiatives, and other recruiting efforts such 

as letters to elected officials and clergy, publicizing recruiting efforts. The department’s recruit-
Current Practices 11

ing web site, whose URL, nypdrecruit.com, appears in all recruiting ads, offers an online 

application process. Candidates may also download a test-preparation book and receive e-mail 

messages from the department every 10 days, as well as postcard reminders of test dates. Outof-town candidates may complete most of the standardized testing in one visit to New York. 

Since March 2002, Pineiro said, the department has received nearly 4 million visits to its 

recruitment web site and nearly 460,000 applications, including nearly 350,000 submitted 

online. Its 24-hour recruitment hot line, 212.RECRUIT, has received more than 66,000 calls 

annually. Department ads, placed on subway cars and platforms, on college campuses, and on 

billboards, emphasize benefits, promotional opportunities, and variety of work. The department also collects data to measure the effectiveness of its recruiting program. 

Hiring for Community Needs 

The Oakland Police Department has traditionally worked under hiring freezes, adding officers 

to its authorized limits when permitted and then seeing its staff dwindle during subsequent 

freezes. Edward Poulson, commander of the department’s Bureau of Administration, told the 

RAND summit that earlier in this decade, for example, the department hired enough officers 

to reach an end strength of nearly 740 but saw this dwindle to 680 during a hiring freeze. 

This cycle began to change when Oakland voters passed the Violence Prevention and Public 

Safety Act of 2004, more commonly referred to as Measure Y. (For more on Measure Y and 

its effects, see Wilson et al., 2007, and Wilson and Cox, 2008.) A 10-year program, Measure Y 

provides about $19 million annually for community policing, violence-prevention programs, 

and fire and paramedic services. 

The community policing component of the initiative required the Oakland Police Department 

to hire at least 63 new officers. Further complicating the department’s hiring needs, Poulson 

said, were a consent decree requiring personnel for internal affairs, evolving police requirements (e.g., at airports and schools and for efforts to curb homicide and child abuse), and an 

ineffective shift schedule resulting in up to 40 percent absenteeism among patrol officers. Staffing shortages, Poulson said, led officers to go from call to call, leaving no time for any work 

except responding to calls. 

To address these issues, Poulson said, the mayor sought and received authorization to increase 

the department’s strength to 803 officers. This has required the department to train 342 officers in its academy in the past two years. 

The department undertook several initiatives to attract new candidates. It launched a $1 million advertising campaign featuring billboards and other saturation advertising during a fivemonth period. It built a web site which, according to Poulson, became one of its most effective 

recruiting tools. It streamlined its process so that it could hire a candidate passing a background examination within three weeks; this, Poulson said, helped the department get promising candidates who had been considering other departments. The department sends applicants 

regular e-mail on the progress of their applications. It has also accepted applicants from other, 

unaffiliated academies. To increase both recruitment and retention, it pays $1,000 to officers 
12 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

for recruiting and mentoring a new recruit through the hiring process and the first few months 

on the job. 

The department has undertaken several other measures to increase its retention of officers. 

A new shift schedule calling for seven 12-hour shifts during a two-week period helped cut 

absenteeism. Arbitration led to a 20 percent increase in pay, with the arbitrator citing the 

need to help recruitment and retention in awarding the increase. The department also added a 

4.5 percent increase in pay for those meeting California Peace Officer Standards and Training 

qualifications and another 4.5 percent for officers with a bachelor’s degree. 

Struggling to Retain Diversity 

The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police serves a population of roughly 300,000 with about 850 officers. One of the bureau’s struggles in recent years has been attracting and retaining a force 

that reflects the diversity of the community, Nathan Harper, chief of police, told the RAND 

summit. 

The Pittsburgh population, Harper said, is about 65 percent white and 52 percent female. 

To increase diversity in the bureau, a consent agreement in 1975 required the bureau to hire 

one black male for each white male it hired, as well as one female for each male it hired. The 

police union, Harper said, fought the agreement until 1991, when the city also agreed to abandon it. 

As a result, white males have dominated recent academy classes, and there is less diversity 

among younger officers than among older ones. For example, 84 percent of the officers with 

less than eight years of service are white males, 10 percent are white females, 5 percent are nonwhite males, and 1 percent are non-white females. White males now make up 70 percent of the 

force, with this number likely to grow as those hired under the consent agreement retire. The 

discrepancy between the composition of the city’s population and the composition of its police 

personnel, Harper said, is likely to increase as the city becomes less male and less white. 

The bureau is also struggling with more-common recruitment and retention issues. Only about 

one in three applicants ultimately joins the bureau. Harper identified drug use among applicants, including a case that was detected after screening and only with a polygraph examination, as one of the principal reasons for disqualification of candidates. 

The bureau has requested but has not received a budget for recruiting. It has sought to streamline the application process from three years to less than six months, but it still struggles, 

Harper said, with attracting recruits from a generation of workers seeking rapid advancement. 

Given limits on recruiting resources, Harper said, providing updated equipment to officers 

could help attract and retain them. 

Residency requirements and higher pay in adjoining suburban jurisdictions are among the 

bureau’s principal challenges in retention. Suburban jurisdictions, Harper said, may offer 

$12,000 more in annual salary, as well as a slower pace of work. Officers with families may 

also seek to move away from Pittsburgh for suburban amenities. 
Current Practices 13

Improving Recruitment and Retention Simultaneously 

The Washington Metropolitan Police Department, with approximately 3,800 officers, ranks 

among the largest in the nation. It confronts many of the same challenges facing other large 

urban local law enforcement agencies in curbing violence. Given its jurisdiction in the nation’s 

capital, it also has several unique responsibilities requiring personnel with a wide variety of 

skills and interests. Maintaining this staff, according to Cathy Lanier, chief of the department, 

requires a focus on both recruitment and retention. 

Lanier named higher standards, leading to a smaller pool of qualified applicants, as among the 

biggest issues confronting her department and others. To attract and retain a sufficient number 

of candidates, Lanier said, departments have to make what has been seen as a “blue-collar” job 

appeal to a “white-collar” population. 

The hiring process for the Washington department, like those for other local law enforcement 

agencies, is lengthy. Lanier said the department cannot put shortcuts into this process, but it 

can do much to shorten it through automation. Lanier noted that many candidates “shotgun” 

applications. This requires the department to make its consideration of candidates more efficient, to focus on those candidates who are most likely to be successful and to choose to stay 

with the department. 

As part of its effort to be more appealing to new recruits, Lanier said, the department seeks to 

instill a sense of pride in the department, as well as in its history. The department has sought 

to create and portray itself as an environment where recruits will want to work. The department also benefits, Lanier claimed, from the options bigger departments can offer to recruits 

and the unique opportunities Washington can offer, stressing opportunities available in career 

progression. 

Often, Lanier said, the department attracts recruits from elsewhere only to lose them when 

hiring improves in their home areas. It has found it more effective to recruit locally, since officers from the area are less likely to return “home” elsewhere and more likely to know the community. The department has had some success with its cadet program. Most recruits, Lanier 

said, know somebody already in the department, demonstrating the importance of in-house 

recruiting efforts. 

Departments still seek in-shape crime fighters, Lanier said, but officers also need to be able to 

interact with the community. To retain older officers who are skeptical of community policing efforts, Lanier suggested stressing the utility of such efforts in developing sources, something she said can be done better by police leadership than by civilian marketing agencies. 

The persons the department serves and those it arrests, Lanier said, both want the same thing: 

respect. 

When Lanier became chief, the department had a monthly attrition rate of about 20 officers. 

Lanier says the department has been able to cut that rate nearly in half by allowing officers to 

be more engaged with their work. One way Lanier has sought to do this is to launch a web 

site on “chief concerns,” permitting officers to anonymously suggest ways to make their job 
14 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

easier and improve the department. The chief publicly recognizes those suggestions that have 

been implemented, encouraging officers to make further suggestions. Officers who are more 

engaged, Lanier said, are more likely to stay with the agency.
15

3. Improving Practices 

Local law enforcement agencies typically cite recruitment and retention as among their most 

pressing issues. Yet, Alan Deal of the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and 

Training told the RAND Summit on Police Recruitment and Retention, they typically do not 

make it a priority. Law enforcement agencies are hindered in recruitment by a lack of strategic 

planning for recruitment, a lack of understanding of the market, and advertising and marketing methods that are out of touch and out of date for today’s potential applicant. Nevertheless, 

Deal said, agencies that make recruitment and retention a priority can overcome these problems. In this section, we review what participants had to say about promising practices for law 

enforcement agencies to address recruitment and retention problems, as well as practices that 

might be adapted from other sectors such as the military. 

Improving Recruiting 

Deal noted that while a large proportion of California local law enforcement agencies agree 

that recruitment is a problem, few have devoted resources to it. Seventy-four percent spend less 

than $5,000 annually on recruitment, and nearly half have no recruitment budget. (For more 

on police recruitment and retention in California, see California Commission on Peace Officer 

Standards and Training, 2001, 2006.) Similarly, a survey of local law enforcement agencies in 

Illinois showed that only 12 percent have a workforce development plan, and none have a written plan for retention. 

Traditional advertising and marketing is unlikely to help overcome these problems, Deal said. 

Such efforts by local police agencies are typically out of date and out of touch, demonstrating little knowledge of what candidates, particularly women and minorities, want in careers. 

Growing worker shortages stemming from decreasing birth rates will add to recruitment problems, and retention problems further compound the challenges local law enforcement agencies 

face. A recent survey found that 22 percent of California officers have switched agencies in the 

course of their careers, with about 4 percent changing agencies each year. Other data show that 

more than 23,000 officers who had completed probation but were not eligible for retirement 

left California law enforcement agencies between 1979 and 2005 for careers elsewhere. 

Newer means of advertising and marketing can help police agencies improve their recruiting, 

Deal claimed. Internet sites are most effective, especially among self-directed candidates interested in police work. The Internet and other creative uses of technology can also help attract 

more young applicants today and are typically used by private-sector firms to attract passive 

candidates who are not otherwise looking to change jobs. 
16 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

A local law enforcement agency’s own employees, Deal said, are perhaps the second-most 

important resource it has for recruiting. The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department claims that 

nearly 90 percent of its best-performing officers learned about the department through a friend, 

relative, or other employee. 

Deal noted that a survey of 800 California academy graduates showed the primary motivations 

for joining a local law enforcement agency were a desire to serve, the promise of adventure or 

excitement at work, stable employment, and non-routine work. The reputation of the agency 

also matters, not only for the candidate but also for “influencers” on the candidate such as 

family and friends. Some large departments develop means to market to particularly desirable 

candidates. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department distributes a video that depicts 

women in a variety of ranks and assignments speaking about what they did before joining the 

department to persuade women in other occupations to consider the potential opportunities 

available to them. Smaller agencies can also find unique ways to market themselves, Deal said. 

The Sheridan, Wyoming, Police Department distributes a video that emphasizes the benefits 

of working for a small agency in the Rocky Mountains. 

Deal noted that agencies can also personalize and streamline their selection process. Extended 

hiring processes put agencies at risk of losing good candidates, as do lack of contact with candidates throughout the process, failure to use online application technologies, and use of jargon 

in application procedures. Several California departments have implemented technology such 

as online applications to speed the hiring process. The federal government has funded initiatives to shorten the selection process. California is spearheading legislation to allow peace officer background investigations to be conducted after a conditional offer of employment, thereby 

permitting background investigators to ask job-related questions without risk of violating the 

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibition of pre-offer medical inquires. 

Recruiting Lessons from the Military 

Many of the recruitment and retention issues that local law enforcement agencies face are 

similar to those faced by the military. Both law enforcement and the military, Bernard Rostker 

of the RAND Corporation told the summit, are market-driven, hierarchical rank systems in 

which recruits typically enter at the bottom and are promoted through the ranks. Both offer 

promotions on a competitive basis, peg pay to time of and grade in service, and offer early 

retirement options. (For more on military recruitment, retention, and personnel management, 

see Rostker, 2006, 2007.) 

The police and the military also have similar life-cycle events in careers for their personnel. 

The first year of service, the accession period, requires both to consider how to attract qualified 

personnel, select appropriate jobs for them, and train and assign them. The second through 

the fifth years are a probationary and two-sided learning period, in which both police agencies 

and the military consider which personnel they want to retain and which they wish to separate 

(although in the police context, except for performance issues, the act of separation is largely 

unilateral and initiated by the individual, not the organization). The fifth through the fifteenth 

years are a promotion period, in which both police and the military must consider whom they 

want to promote to leadership positions and whom they do not want to advance. Subsequent 
Improving Practices 17

years involve retirement and senior assignment issues, in which both police and the military 

must consider how to keep and motivate those they want to retain, what to do with senior officers, and how to maintain appropriate turnover in the force. 

Rostker noted that although local law enforcement agencies lack a centralized source for 

research and analysis on what may or may not work for police recruitment and retention, 

variation among them can help them analyze and identify the most effective recruitment and 

retention practices. Furthermore, previous research that helped the military address many of 

the problems it shares with police agencies might be adapted to these agencies. This includes 

research on how to build a high-quality force and its effects, increasing pay to improve retention, and appealing to new age groups. 

Specific military recruiting experiences might also be applied to police work. The military has 

to make an enormous number of contacts to meet its accession requirements. In fact, Colonel 

Dan Choike and Lieutenant Colonel Mike Zeliff of the U.S. Marine Corps told the summit, 

Marine recruiters make approximately 10,000 contacts to ensure that 100 recruits are processed at the Military Entrance Processing Station and 55 eventually graduate from the School 

of Infantry. Part of this high ratio of contacts to recruits stems from the military’s qualifications. Of the nearly 33 million youths in the United States between the ages of 17 and 24, only 

about 6 million are legal residents who have high school diplomas, would meet the requirements of Test Score Category A, and would not be disqualified for moral or physical fitness 

reasons. 

The propensity of youth to join the military has also decreased recently: In June 2005, 15 

percent said they “definitely” or “probably” would “be serving in the military in the next few 

years,” but only 9 percent said so in December 2007. Nevertheless, Choike and Zeliff said, a 

great recruiter has confidence in his or her ability to convert the reluctant to joining. 

Military recruiting, Choike and Zeliff said, follows a model of consumer behavior in which 

awareness or understanding of military opportunities is, over time, converted to a decision 

to enlist (Figure 3.1). Like local law enforcement agencies, the Marine Corps seeks to attract 

individuals with the “dignity” goals of personal achievement and respect for self and others and 

who demonstrate “fidelity” in their duty to country and their self-discipline and teamwork. 

The Marine Corps, Choike and Zeliff said, has several measures of effectiveness for the $140 

million in advertising it spends to attract recruits, including measures of ad recall and action 

taken because of the ads. The military also measures lead generation variables such as qualified 

leads and their conversion rates and recruiter support. 

Recruiting Without Resources 

Although the military can offer many lessons in recruitment and retention for local law enforcement agencies, it differs from many agencies in one important way: It has a large recruiting force and budget. By contrast, Nelson Lim of the RAND Corporation told the summit, 

only 30 percent of police departments have a recruiting force. Most elements of the military 
18 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

Figure 3.1

Military Enlistment Behavior Model 

High

LowEnlistment intent

Time

Search

Consideration

Awareness/understanding

Enlist

Choose

RAND CF261-3.1

model by which candidates are converted to recruits are also beyond the control of local law 

enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, Lim said, there are five ways local law enforcement agencies can improve recruiting without additional resources, that is, without requiring an increase 

in taxes. 

First, Lim suggests, local law enforcement agencies should put one leader in charge of the entire 

recruiting process, from marketing to testing to background investigation through academy 

training. While most agencies do not consider the academy to be part of training, Lim said, the 

academy dropout rate needs to be considered in assessing how well recruiting is functioning—

specifically, whether recruiters are signing up the most promising candidates for the academy. 

To be effective, the recruiting “czar” should have direct support and a clear mandate from the 

police chief and civic leaders to make all elements of recruiting work seamlessly in a lean and 

difficult environment. 

Second, Lim says, agencies should publicize that they are hiring. In some cases, Lim said, 

even test takers are not sure that hiring is taking place. Police agencies should engage all their 

resources in the effort, putting recruiting information on business cards, asking officers to 

spread the word, and using department vehicles as billboards. Agencies can make their web 

sites more effective by emphasizing the positive reasons for joining, demystifying the recruiting 

process (perhaps providing a sample test online), and providing clear and updated instructions 

for applicants. 

Third, Lim recommends that agencies identify untapped local markets. Out-of-town recruiting trips, he said, are not effective, given that few persons will move far just to become police 
Improving Practices 19

officers. Rather, such recruiting trips ought to be limited to those locations where some intelligence indicates candidates are likely to be found, such as areas with economic difficulties 

or where candidates are likely to have difficulties because of few openings. Within their own 

areas, local law enforcement agencies can make recruiting more effective by using a program 

such as CrimeStat to identify the top recruit-producing neighborhoods and communities and 

targeting their recruiting efforts on similar areas. 

Fourth, Lim said, not all applicants are equally viable, so agencies should process them according to their viability. Highly viable applicants should be the top recruiting priority, and less 

viable candidates should be a lower priority. Agencies should prioritize applicants by viability 

to unclog their recruiting systems. 

Fifth, not all recruiters and background investigators are equally productive. Local law enforcement agencies should develop performance measures based on recent numbers and should 

encourage and reward top recruiting performance. Such recognition might be in the form of 

an award for the recruiter of the month, quarter, or year; lunch with the police chief; or dinner 

with the mayor. 

Improving Retention 

Retention, summit participants agreed, is the other side of recruiting, or what prevents departments from recruiting candidates only to lose them. Dwayne Orrick, Director of Public Safety 

for Cordele, Georgia, noted that retention costs can be tallied as separation costs, recruitment 

costs, selection costs, new-employee costs, and other “soft” costs such as those that departments incur when they must “stack” calls and forgo proactive policing work because of staffing shortages. All told, Orrick claimed, failure to retain an officer can result in $100,000 in 

additional costs for a department; therefore, the best way to reduce the demand on recruiting 

resources is for a department to keep the officers it already has. 

Officers, Orrick said, may leave a department for either “external” or “internal” reasons. External reasons relate to the economy at the time; that is, officers may leave because they can, 

having better opportunities elsewhere. Internal reasons relate to what the department itself can 

offer. The single biggest influence on whether an officer leaves or stays, Orrick claimed, is the 

officer’s immediate supervisor, because “people don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses.” Other causes 

for turnover may include uncompetitive salaries, lack of career growth, unmet job expectations, inadequate feedback, insufficient recognition, or lack of training that officers may seek 

for career growth. 

Orrick said that agencies should identify the core values they wish to instill and assess the 

organizational, cultural, and personal fit candidates will have with the agency. Agencies can 

use realistic job previews to ensure proper organizational fit, behavioral interviews to assess 

cultural fit, and background investigations to ensure personal fit. In addition to offering officers “survival” (that is, money) at their jobs, agencies should also help them reach recognition 

(success) and meaning (or transformation) at work. 

Local law enforcement agencies can, Orrick said, address many of the reasons officers may 

choose to remain with the department or look elsewhere. Conducting “stay” interviews with 
20 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

the best officers can help identify what helps retain officers, to identify traits in officers who are 

likely to fit in or stay with the department, and to find what employees want that agencies can 

provide. Such interviews may also help agencies begin their retention efforts with recruiting. 

Orrick also suggested that agencies make supervisors accountable for retention, something, 

he added, that is easier to do in large organizations with multiple stations or bureaus than in 

smaller ones. Agencies can also make salaries competitive, offer flexible compensation, enhance 

recognition and career development, and offer career assessment and counseling. Offering 

varied work experiences, such as cross-training or shadowing, can help officers discern which 

parts of police work they like most and wish to pursue. Addressing personal and family issues 

can also help agencies retain officers. Finally, agencies should create meaningful causes for their 

officers, enabling them to consider their careers as making a difference to a jurisdiction. (For 

more on police retention issues, see Orrick, 2008.) 
21

4. Concluding Remarks 

Summary of Discussions

Local law enforcement agencies are facing increasing challenges in recruitment and retention 

just as their work is becoming more complex. Higher standards, such as requiring a college 

education or a history of no or very limited drug use, are reducing the number of eligible applicants, while agencies must take on increasingly complex tasks ranging from traditional crimefighting roles to community policing to homeland security. 

Police agencies generally have not applied common tenets of personnel management to their 

profession to address these challenges, but they can draw many lessons from the application 

of personnel-management methods in other occupations and the experiences of their peers. 

Analyses of military recruiting and retention can yield insights into how to appeal to young 

applicants and to design career paths and progression that will retain and reward the most 

promising officers. Local law enforcement agencies themselves, ranging from departments 

with constant needs to those that need to grow to meet specific needs to those that need to 

retain particular personnel, have lessons to share with each other. The results of this summit 

represent a call for a concerted effort to develop personnel-management principles and apply 

them to the law enforcement community. 

Evidence-based initiatives can yield results. Many departments already gather data to assess 

and fine-tune their efforts. In the extreme case of New Orleans, evidence-based initiatives, 

when presented by those outside the police department, quickly rallied city leaders to implement many needed changes for the department. 

Internet dissemination can also help spread effective lessons more quickly and widely. Two 

recent innovations announced at the summit illustrate resources that can help police agencies 

with their recruitment and retention needs. The RAND Center for Quality Policing, with the 

support of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, has launched a recruitment 

and retention clearinghouse (http://www.rand.org/ise/centers/quality_policing/cops/). Jeremy 

Wilson, who serves as the clearinghouse’s director, explained that it compiles in a searchable 

database information to help build, maintain, and enhance police workforces. All resources 

are annotated and sortable, allowing agency personnel to identify the information that is most 

relevant to their needs. Resources include

•	 Reports on promising practices, including evidence-based guides to improving recruitment and retention, especially for workforce diversity and community policing.

•	 Research and assessment reports on recruitment and retention.

•	 Briefings summarizing key personnel issues and strategies.
22 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

•	 Tools and methods for targeting recruiting efforts, assessing personnel needs, and 

gauging goal accomplishment.

•	 Data on personnel planning, police agency employment and policies, and community 

characteristics.

•	 Web site links to discussions of police staffing issues, funding agencies, professional 

associations, government offices, and data repositories.

•	 News and commentary by police personnel.

•	 Field experiences highlighting experiences and observations regarding recruitment and 

retention.

•	 Announcements of current opportunities for police agencies and officers, including 

conferences, training sessions, funding opportunities, and other programs. 

In addition, Kim Kohlhepp of the International Association of Chiefs of Police brought attention to the association’s new Discover Policing web site (http://www.discoverpolicing.org), 

which, by allowing candidates to obtain information on policing and to connect with agencies 

online, will help law enforcement agencies address their continuing recruiting challenges. Its 

career database offers information such as

•	 Why policing is a great career.

•	 Examples of the diversity of organizations and employment opportunities.

•	 Personal accounts of what it is like to be a police officer.

•	 An overview of hiring, selection, and training processes. 

Both the Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse and the Discover Policing web sites can 

help police agencies meet their personnel goals. The Clearinghouse web site helps to promote 

the dissemination of evidence-based lessons to assist agencies in maximizing the yield on 

their recruitment and retention efforts and resources. The Discover Policing web site increases 

awareness of, and interest in, the police profession, thereby improving police agencies’ ability to 

attract quality candidates. These and other means of communicating innovations, promising 

practices, analyses, and information are important for developing police-specific personnelmanagement practices. 

Implications for Meeting Personnel Needs 

The summit also pointed to several steps police agencies can take to improve their recruiting 

and retention. In particular, participants noted the following:

•	 In a highly competitive market, partnering with local criminal justice programs, 

administering frequent exams, and providing recruiting bonuses proved successful.

•	 In a rapidly growing community, a marketing campaign appealing to characteristics such as selflessness, patriotism, and community orientation, which the agency 

desired and candidates shared, helped attract candidates. Developing a cadre system 

letting recruits “recycle” through the academy as necessary also helped improve their 

processing.
Concluding Remarks 23

•	 In a community that had to rebuild after a catastrophe, focused research on recruitment and retention, including an analysis of salary and benefits, helped a department 

reverse its slide and stabilize its numbers.

•	 In a very large community, multiple initiatives, from selling the department’s “brand” 

to recruitment web sites and hotlines to improving pay, are all necessary to maintain 

the required force size.

•	 In a community seeking to rapidly increase its police force for specific community 

needs, streamlined processes allowing candidates to be hired within three weeks of 

passing an exam helped improve recruitment, while changes in pay and other work 

practices helped maintain retention.

•	 In a department struggling to attain diversity that reflects that of the community, the 

lack of a recruiting budget and restrictions such as residency requirements can limit 

success.

•	 In a department seeking to improve recruitment and retention simultaneously, making 

the nature of policing more appealing to candidates seeking “white-collar” status, 

instilling pride in the department, and demonstrating to veterans how new techniques 

(e.g., community policing) serve traditional purposes (e.g., developing leads to capture 

criminals) all work.

•	 More generally, police agencies should focus on newer means of advertising and marketing, such as the Internet, for improving their recruiting, although their own employees will remain a very important recruiting resource.

•	 Police agencies can learn from military experience in different stages of the career cycle 

in market-driven, hierarchical rank systems.

•	 Agencies that find themselves with little or no resources for recruiting can still improve 

their recruiting efforts by centralizing leadership for those efforts, spreading the word 

when they are hiring, identifying untapped local markets, prioritizing applications, 

and rewarding their most effective recruiters.

•	 Finally, because retention can eliminate much of the need for recruiting, agencies 

should focus on the “internal” reasons that may drive away effective employees and 

should work to augment the reasons officers choose to stay with a department.

25

Append

Summit Agenda

The 2008

National Summit on Police Recruitment an

the Contemporary U

Hosted by the

RAND Center on Quality Policing

Agenda

June 17, 2008

8:45 a.m. Registration and Breakfast

9:15 a.m. Welcome and Introduction 

Dr. Jeremy Wilson, RAND (Host)

Dr. Greg Ridgeway, RAND

Mr. Carl Peed, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

9:45 a.m. The Changing Workforce

Police Personnel Challenges After September 11

Dr. Laura Miller, RAND

Is There a Cop Crunch?

Bruce Taylor, Police Executive Research Forum

Hiring Crisis Versus Hiring Opportunity

Dr. Ellen Scrivner, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

11:15 a.m. Break

11:30 a.m. East Coast Experiences

Pittsburgh Experience

Chief Nathan Harper, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police

Strategic Recruiting in the New York City Police Department 

Chief Rafael Pineiro, New York Police Department

12:30 p.m. Lunch
26 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

1:30 p.m. West Coast Experiences

Oakland Experience

Captain Ed Poulson, Oakland Police Department

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Presentation

Deputy Chief James Owens, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police 

Department

2:30 p.m. Break

2:45 p.m. “Ask the Experts” Panel and Open Forum Discussion

Dr. Jeremy Wilson, RAND (Moderator)

4:15 p.m. Conclusion and Adjournment

June 18, 2008

8:30 a.m. Registration and Breakfast

9:00 a.m. The Military Way

Improved Staffing Through Life-Cycle Planning

Dr. Bernard Rostker, RAND

Marketing and Advertising

Lt. Colonel Michael Zeliff, U.S. Marine Corps 

Recruiting Operation

Colonel Daniel Choike, U.S. Marine Corps

10:30 a.m. Break

10:45 a.m. Promising Practices

What Works and What Doesn’t 

Alan Deal, California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and 

Training

Competing in a Highly Competitive Job Market

Chief M. Douglas Scott, Arlington County Police Department

Improving Retention

Dwayne Orrick, Public Safety Director, City of Cordele

12:30 p.m. Lunch and Keynote Speaker

Chief Cathy Lanier, Washington Metropolitan Police Department
Summit Agenda 27

1:30 p.m. Promising Practices (continued)

Recruiter Incentives 

Dr. Nelson Lim, RAND

1:45 p.m. Staffing in Crisis Situations

Police Recruitment and Retention in New Orleans: Crisis as 

Catalyst 

Dr. Jeremy Wilson, RAND

New Orleans Experience 

Warren J. Riley, Superintendent, New Orleans Police 

Department

2:45 p.m. New and Forthcoming Recruitment and Retention 

Resources

RAND Police Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse (http://

www.rand.org/ise/centers/quality_policing/cops/)

Dr. Jeremy Wilson, RAND

Discover Policing: Unlocking the Recruitment Problem 

(http://www.discoverpolicing.org)

Kim Kohlhepp, International Association of Chiefs of Police

3:00 p.m. Break

3:15 p.m. “Ask the Experts” Panel and Open Forum Discussion

Dr. Greg Ridgeway, RAND (Moderator)

4:30 p.m. Conclusion and Adjournment

29

Append

Summit Participants

Colonel Dan Choike

U.S. Marine Corps

Colonel Choike is serving on the fourth recruiting tour of his career. He has held leadership 

positions at all levels of recruiting and currently leads the Marine Corps recruiting force’s 

national staff.

Alan B. Deal

California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training

Alan B. Deal is an assistant executive director with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST). He has been 

with POST for 15 years. POST is a state agency responsible for the development of selection standards and the delivery of training for peace officers and public safety dispatchers throughout California. Deal oversees 

the Standards and Development Division of POST, which is responsible 

for the development of basic training, selection standards, testing, recruitment, research, and delivery of video and web-based training. Deal is a retired captain of 

the Los Angeles Police Department. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and has 

a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice administration from California State University, Los Angeles, and a master of arts degree in public communications from Pepperdine 

University, Malibu, California. 

Nathan E. Harper

Pittsburgh Bureau of Police

Nathan E. Harper was sworn in as chief of police on October 31, 

2006. In this capacity, he is responsible for the overall operations of the 

Bureau of Police, including formulation and control of the annual Police 

Bureau budget, development and dissemination of police directives to 

the bureau, coordination of training regimens, and the fostering of 

communication among the various facets of the Police Bureau. Prior to 

this assignment, Chief Harper served as assistant chief of investigations, 

assistant chief of administration, and assistant chief of operations. He has received awards 

and commendations for his service and has been recognized with a Meritorious Service 

Award as well as the Spirit of Life Award.
30 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

Kim Kohlhepp

International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)

Kim Kohlhepp is the manager of the IACP’s Center for Testing Services & 

Career Development. In this capacity, he is responsible for the direction of 

all IACP projects involving executive search for police chiefs, as well as the 

design and administration of promotional tests and assessment centers for 

promotion of law enforcement personnel. He manages and facilitates IACP’s 

annual Assessment Center Workshop and manages several grant-funded 

initiatives regarding police recruitment. Kohlhepp has a master’s degree in 

industrial/organizational psychology and has completed considerable coursework beyond the 

master’s level at the University of Nebraska.

Cathy L. Lanier

Chief, Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department

Cathy L. Lanier was selected for the position of chief of the Metropolitan Police Department by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty in November 2006. 

She officially assumed the leadership position on January 2, 2007, and was 

unanimously approved for confirmation as the new Chief by the Council 

of the District of Columbia on April 3, 2007.

Chief Lanier has spent her entire law enforcement career with the Metropolitan Police Department, beginning in 1990. Most of her career has been 

in uniformed patrol, where she served as commander of the Fourth District, one of the largest 

and most diverse residential patrol districts in the city. She also served as the commanding officer of the Department’s Major Narcotics Branch and Vehicular Homicide Units. 

More recently, Chief Lanier served as commander of the Special Operations Division (SOD) 

for four years, where she managed the Emergency Response Team, Aviation and Harbor Units, 

Horse Mounted and Canine Units, Special Events/Dignitary Protection Branch, and Civil 

Disturbance Units. During her tenure as SOD commander, she established the agency’s first 

Homeland Security/Counter-Terrorism Branch and created an agencywide chemical, biological, and radiological response unit known as the Special Threat Action Team. 

In 2006, the MPDC’s Office of Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism was created, and 

Chief Lanier was tapped to be its first commanding officer. A highly respected professional in 

the areas of homeland security and community policing, she took the lead role in developing 

and implementing coordinated counterterrorism strategies for all units within the MPDC and 

launched Operation TIPP (Terrorist Incident Prevention Program).

Chief Lanier is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Federal Drug Enforcement 

Administration’s Drug Unit Commanders Academy. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees 

in management from The Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in national security 

studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She is certified at the 

technician level in hazardous materials operations.
Summit Participants 31

Nelson Lim

RAND Corporation

Nelson Lim is a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation. His 

research interests include military manpower analysis, diversity management, military families, immigration, and social demography. He has conducted studies of military recruiting and retention in active duty as well 

as reserve components for the U.S. Army. In addition, he has examined 

the best diversity practices by Fortune 500 companies and barriers to promotion in various government agencies, including the National Security 

Agency and the U.S. Air Force. He has also assisted police departments, 

including the San Diego Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department, with 

their recruiting efforts.

Laura Miller

RAND Corporation

Laura Miller is a social scientist at the RAND Corporation. She conducts 

research on the sociology of military personnel and operations, using observations, focus groups, interviews, and surveys. Miller has met with U.S. 

troops at dozens of stateside posts and in overseas operations in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Germany, Somalia, Haiti, Macedonia, and 

Bosnia. She received her bachelor’s degree in European and Soviet studies 

from the University of Redlands and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University. Miller was previously a post-doctoral 

fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University and an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Miller has served as an 

executive council member of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and 

on the council of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Peace, War, and Social 

Conflict. She has also been a member of the Army Science Board, which advises Army leadership on issues related to science and technology, and in 2005 was a member of the Secretary of 

the Army’s transition team. In 2003, Miller was a member of the Panel to Investigate Sexual 

Misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy (The Fowler Commission), and in 2004–2005, she 

was a member of the Task Force to Investigate Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military 

Academies. 

Dwayne Orrick

City of Cordele, Georgia 

Author of Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover of Police Personnel and monthly columnist 

on recruitment for Law and Order magazine, Dwayne Orrick has been the Cordele, Georgia, police chief and public safety director for 18 years. Prior to assuming these positions, he 

worked as a criminal justice management consultant, police officer, field training officer, and 

deputy sheriff. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in criminal justice and a master of public 

administration degree from the University of Georgia. He is a graduate of the 186th Session 

of the FBI National Academy and the Georgia-International Law Enforcement Exchange to 

Israel. Chief Orrick is a member of the State of Georgia Board of Public Safety, as well as of 
32 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

the Georgia Peace Officers and Standards Council. He also serves as an advisor/consultant 

for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Services, Support, and Technical 

Assistance for Smaller Police Departments Project and is the president of the Georgia Police 

Chief’s Association.

James Owens

Deputy Chief, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

James Owens is the deputy chief of the Investigative Services Division of 

the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. This includes all detective 

and investigative details outside of vice narcotics, criminal intelligence, and 

homeland security. Chief Owens assumed this position on May 17, 2008. 

For the past year and a half he was the deputy chief on human resources, 

which includes personnel as well as training. The training portion consisted 

of academy, in-service training, EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operations 

Center), and the firearms range. The personnel portion included recruiting, all testing for new 

hires, transfers and promotions, and labor relations.

Chief Owens has worked in patrol, field training, SWAT, and as an officer. As a supervisor, he has worked in patrol, gangs, the Training Bureau, the academy, special operations, 

human resources, and the Investigative Services Division. He currently serves as chairman of 

the Southern Nevada Community Gang Task Force, which is made up of all local law enforcement entities, as well as local community organizations. 

Carl R. Peed

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice

Carl R. Peed was appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft on September 4, 2001, to head the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 

(COPS) of the U.S. Department of Justice. The COPS Office is responsible 

for advancing community policing nationwide and supporting the community policing activities of state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies. 

To date, the COPS Office has provided $12.4 billion to fund the hiring of 

more than 118,000 officers and deputies and produce a variety of knowledge resources, including publications, CDs, training, technical assistance, conferences, and 

webcasts.

Under Director Peed’s leadership, particularly in light of the events of 9/11, the COPS Office 

has developed high-level resources and training in the areas of intelligence, interoperable communications, major event security and safety, IT security, school and campus safety, and crime 

prevention, to name a few examples. Early in 2002, a few months after 9/11, the COPS Office 

hosted an executive summit on policing in the post-9/11 era that highlighted the needs and 

issues of a changing policing environment, with a follow-up meeting in 2006. The COPS 

Office also developed and hosted four national satellite broadcasts/webcasts on the use of force, 

gangs, hiring in the spirit of service, and methamphetamine and has produced several CDROMs on topics of importance to law enforcement.
Summit Participants 33

From 2000 until he joined the COPS Office, Director Peed led the Department of Juvenile 

Justice in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As director, he managed the 2,700 employees and 

$237 million budget of this statewide agency and was responsible for developing policy and 

providing administrative oversight for 38 regional offices and 110 facilities.

Previously, Director Peed enjoyed a 25-year career with the Fairfax County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office, serving as the elected sheriff from 1990 to 1999. During his years on the force, he 

gained national recognition for developing model policies and procedures in criminal justice 

administration and was instrumental in advancing new technologies for the criminal justice 

system. He also served as a consultant to the National Sheriffs’ Association, the American Correctional Association, and the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Director Peed holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke 

and a certificate of criminal justice administration from the University of Virginia. He is 

a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the Senior Executive Institute, the Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar program, and the Virginia Executive Institute program. 

From 1970 to 1972, while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Meyer, Virginia, he was a member 

of the Presidential Honor Guard. 

Rafael Pineiro

Chief of Personnel, New York City Police Department

Chief of Personnel Rafael Pineiro was appointed to the New York City Police 

Department in June 1970. Graduating at the top of his Police Academy class, 

he received the Chief of Personnel Award for the highest combined academic 

and physical fitness scores. He began his career on patrol in the 88th Precinct 

and was promoted to sergeant in July 1981; lieutenant in May 1984; captain 

in January 1988; deputy inspector in November 1989; inspector in October 1990; deputy chief in September 1991; and assistant chief in February 

1994. He has served in the 24th, 41st, and 72nd Precincts, as well as the Tactical Patrol Force, 

Patrol Borough Bronx, the Legal Division, Office of the Police Commissioner, Criminal Justice Bureau, Housing Bureau, Management Information Systems Division (MISD), and the 

Recruitment and Retention Unit. 

Chief of Personnel Pineiro, who earned a Police Combat Cross, the department’s secondhighest award for valor, for confronting a shotgun-toting suspect who had robbed a bodega 

on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, has served as the commanding officer of the 41st Precinct, 

Office of the Police Commissioner, Patrol Borough Bronx, the Criminal Justice Bureau, and 

the Recruitment and Retention Unit. He has also served as the executive officer of the Housing Bureau.

Chief of Personnel Pineiro earned a bachelor of science degree in behavioral science from 

the New York Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in management from New York 

University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, and a juris doctorate from Brooklyn 

Law School. He is licensed to practice law in the New York state courts, as well as in the 

Eastern and Southern Districts of New York federal courts. In 1995, he attended the John F. 
34 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as the recipient of a John B. Pickett 

Fellowship. The program, designed for senior executives in state and local government, focused 

on such areas as organizational strategy, political management, policy development, conflict 

management, management control and operations, and the management of human resources. 

He is also a graduate of the original class of the Police Management Institute at Columbia 

University.

In July 1995, Chief of Personnel Pineiro founded and served as the chairman of the National 

Law Enforcement Explorer Academy. This institution, which operates under the auspices 

of The Greater New York Councils Exploring Division, is attended by youngsters between 

the ages of 14 and 20. It fundamentally serves as a leadership- and team-developing skills 

forum. Instructors from the Police Academy and members of the Secret Service, Customs 

Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation provide the youth 

with a two-week period of instruction into the functions and responsibilities of the various 

agencies.

Edward Poulson

Captain, Oakland Police Department

Edward Poulson is a captain of police for the Oakland Police Department 

in Oakland, California. He is currently the commander for the Bureau of 

Administration. The Bureau of Administration includes the Backgrounds 

and Recruiting, Technology, Fiscal Services, and Personnel units. Prior to 

serving as the commander for the Bureau of Administration, Captain Poulson was the commander for the School Police Unit, and before that, the 

Airport Security Unit at the Oakland Airport. Captain Poulson has served 

in a variety of assignments as an officer, sergeant, and lieutenant. These assignments included 

patrol, internal affairs, and investigations. Captain Poulson received a bachelor’s degree in 

criminal justice from California State University, East Bay, in 2003.

Greg Ridgeway

RAND Corporation

Greg Ridgeway (Ph.D. in statistics, University of Washington, Seattle) is 

acting director of RAND’s Safety and Justice Research Program and director 

of RAND’s Center on Quality Policing, charged with managing RAND’s 

portfolio of work on policing, crime prevention, courts, corrections, and 

public and occupational safety. Ridgeway’s research involves the analysis of 

complex datasets in order to address the most pressing policy issues in public 

safety and justice administration. Ridgeway recently completed a National 

Institute of Justice–sponsored study of illegal firearm market disruption strategies in Los Angeles, working closely with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the 

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the California Department of Justice (DOJ), and the 

Los Angeles City Attorney’s office. He is also working with federally appointed monitors in 

Cincinnati to study police practices and community-police relations and has just released an 

analysis of New York Police Department (NYPD) records that evaluates racially biased polic-
Summit Participants 35

ing in street stops. The San Diego Police Department has recently collaborated with Ridgeway on a program to improve officer recruiting there, and a similar program has begun in Los 

Angeles. Ridgeway has designed and evaluated several randomized and observational studies 

to measure the impact of policy decisions, including a study of illegal firearm interventions in 

East Los Angeles, a study of the formation of gangs in Pittsburgh, and evaluations of adolescent drug treatment alternatives. His writings on justice topics have appeared in the Journal 

of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Law Enforcement 

News, the Dallas Morning News, the New York Daily News, and the Washington Post. In 2005, 

he received a commendation from the ATF Los Angeles Field Division and the Attorney General of California for “contributions to reducing firearms related crimes in Los Angeles.”

Warren J. Riley

New Orleans Police Department

Warren J. Riley was appointed interim superintendent of police on September 

27, 2005, 28 days after Hurricane Katrina. He was officially sworn in as 

superintendent of police on November 28, 2005. Riley is a 27-year veteran 

of the New Orleans Police Department. Prior to his appointment as 

superintendent, he served as the assistant superintendent, the number two 

position in the department, and as the chief operations officer, where he 

commanded all field and investigative units in the department, comprising 17 divisions and 

more than 2,100 commissioned and civilian members. Prior to becoming the chief operations 

officer, Riley was appointed as a deputy chief, in command of the Policy, Planning and Training 

Bureau.

As a captain of police, Riley commanded the 5th Police District, which included the Lower 

9th Ward and the largest concentration of low-income residents in the city of New Orleans. 

He successfully reduced the homicide rate in that area by 9 percent. While a lieutenant, he 

served as the commander of the Information Systems and Services Division. Riley also served 

as the executive assistant to the commander of the 6th Police District. He commanded the 

department’s Community Oriented Policing Squad (COPS), which served public housing 

developments that historically had high crime rates. Riley successfully reduced violent crime 

in those areas by 23 percent.

As a sergeant, he was a platoon commander in the 5th Police District and later became a 

special investigator in the Internal Affairs Division. As a patrolman, Riley worked in the 6th 

Police District, and as an undercover detective, in the Vice Crimes and Major Case Narcotics 

Sections of the Special Investigations Division.

The New Orleans Police Department has acquired state-of-the-art policing equipment and 

vehicles under Riley’s leadership. He assisted in the revitalization of Police Headquarters 

and district police stations that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Riley has also 

overseen the largest budget and the largest recruit class in the history of the New Orleans 

Police Department. 

Superintendent Riley holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from Southern University of 

New Orleans, a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Southern University of New Orleans, 

and an associate’ts degree in criminal justice from Delgado College of New Orleans. He 
36 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

currently serves as an adjunct professor at Southern University of New Orleans and previously 

served as an adjunct professor at Delgado College and Concordia College. 

Superintendent Riley attended the Senior Management Institute for Police Executives at 

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of the FBI’s National Executive 

Institute. Superintendent Riley studied transnational crimes and terrorism in Oslo, Norway. 

He has obtained training in advanced police administration, criminal justice administration, 

criminal justice human resource management, statistics, legal ethics in law enforcement, and 

community policing.

Superintendent Riley is involved in many professional organizations and community groups, 

including the Police Executive Research Forum, the International Association of Chiefs of 

Police, and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and is a criminal 

justice advisor to the Louisiana University Violence Intervention Team and vice president of 

the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. He also serves on several boards, including the 

State of Louisiana Drug Policy Board, Orleans Parish Communications District Board, Bishop 

Perry School, and the United Way.

Bernard Rostker

RAND Corporation

Bernard Rostker rejoined RAND as a senior fellow in January 2001, 

after serving as the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (2000–2001). Prior to that, he was Under Secretary of the Army 

(1998–2000), Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve 

Affairs (1994–1998), Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense 

for Gulf War Illnesses (1996–2001), and director of Selective Service 

(1979–1981). He received the Distinguished Service Award five times for his service to the 

U.S. government. He is also a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. 

Since returning to RAND, his research has focused on personnel issues for the Department of 

Defense and several local police departments. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book 

I Want You: The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force. 

M. Douglas Scott 

Chief, Arlington County Police Department

Chief M. Douglas Scott has nearly 32 years of law enforcement experience, 

including almost 10 years of service as the chief of police of the Arlington 

County Police Department. He was appointed chief of police in Arlington 

County, Virginia, in April 2003. Chief Scott began his law enforcement 

career as a police cadet with the Fairfax County Police Department in 1975. 

In 1995, Chief Scott was appointed chief of police for Fairfax County. In 

1998, he retired from Fairfax County and was named chief of police of the 

City of Fairfax Police Department. He left local law enforcement briefly in 2000 to join federal 

service when he accepted a position as an Assistant Inspector General for the U.S. Department 

of the Interior.
Summit Participants 37

Chief Scott holds an associate’s degree in police science, a bachelor’s degree in applied behavioral science, and a master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University. 

He is also a graduate of the FBI’s National Academy and the FBI’s National Executive Institute. Chief Scott currently serves as the second vice president of the Virginia Association of 

Chiefs of Police.

Ellen Scrivner

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Ellen Scrivner is the director of the John Jay Leadership Academy at the John Jay College of 

Criminal Justice in New York City. Formerly, she served as deputy superintendent for administrative services of the Chicago Police Department, where she was responsible for the department’s $1.2 billion budget. 

Scrivner is a recognized expert on a wide range of public safety issues and has spent time at 

both the federal and local law enforcement levels, as well as in the academic arena. While in 

Chicago, Scrivner implemented a revised Personnel Performance System, created an electronic 

form of community policing designated as CLEARPath, and oversaw the implementation of 

ICLEAR, the information-sharing enterprise system designed to advance sharing of critical 

police information throughout the state of Illinois. She was instrumental in securing the first 

MacArthur Foundation award the department had received throughout its history and also 

chaired the first citywide Task Force on Police Response to Mental Health Issues. As deputy 

director for community policing development at the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office, 

Scrivner oversaw an $8.8 billion grant program, launched the nationwide network of innovative Regional Community Policing Institutes, and was responsible for all police integrity initiatives and applied research. She has held adjunct faculty appointments at the University of 

Maryland, George Mason University, and the University of Illinois (Chicago), and she has a 

publication history that addresses contemporary public safety issues, including recruitment, 

hiring, training, use of force/accountability, community policing, and a range of police psychological issues. 

Bruce Taylor

Police Executive Research Forum

Bruce Taylor is the director of research for the Police Executive Research Forum. He has 

conducted studies in the areas of policing, violent offenders, domestic violence/victimization, 

victim assistance, and drug markets. In the area of policing research, Taylor has studied police 

recruitment, hiring, and retention practices; best practices for law enforcement in identifying 

and responding to transnational crime; measurement of the implementation of community 

policing; and officer safety. He has also conducted randomized experiments on the effects of 

policing programs on reducing violence. His current research examines law enforcement interventions to reduce violent crime and integrating crime analysis into patrol work; it includes 

a randomized experiment to reduce auto theft, an evaluation of the use of conducted energy 

devices (i.e., Tasers) by law enforcement, and an evaluation of the involvement of local law 

enforcement in immigration enforcement. Taylor’s recent peer-reviewed publications have been 

on integrating crime analysis with patrol work, illicit drug markets, law enforcement responses 
38 Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment

to transnational crime, preventing domestic violence, and drug testing. He received his doctorate from Rutgers University in 1996.

Jeremy M. Wilson 

Michigan State University/RAND Corporation

Jeremy M. Wilson is the associate director for research and an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He 

also is director of the Police Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse at 

the RAND Corporation, where he is an adjunct behavioral scientist. He is a 

visiting scholar in the Australian Resource Council’s Centre of Excellence in 

Policing and Security at Griffith University, and he recently held the Willett 

Chair in Public Safety in the Center for Public Safety at Northwestern University and was an adjunct professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Wilson 

has collaborated with police agencies, communities, task forces, and governments throughout the United States and the world on many of the most salient public safety problems. His 

recent books include Recruitment and Retention: Lessons for the New Orleans Police Department, 

Human Trafficking in Ohio, Securing America’s Passenger-Rail Systems, Community Policing and 

Crime: The Process and Impact of Problem-Solving in Oakland, Community Policing and Violence 

Prevention in Oakland, Community Policing in America, Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati, State and Local Intelligence in the War on Terrorism, and Establishing Law and Order 

After Conflict. His research and commentary have also been featured in numerous professional 

journals and in various forms of national and international media. Wilson received his Ph.D. 

in public administration from The Ohio State University.

Lt. Col. Michael Zeliff

U.S. Marine Corps

Lieutenant Colonel Zeliff has been serving in his current role since 2002. He works closely 

with the Marine Corps–contracted advertising agency in developing messaging strategy and 

tactics for awareness and lead generation efforts. 
39

References 

California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, Peace Officer Recruitment and Retention: Best 

Practices, July 2001. As of May 5, 2009: 

http://libcat.post.ca.gov/dbtw-wpd/documents/post/53936324.pdf 

California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, Recruitment and Retention Best Practices 

Update, April 2006. As of May 5, 2009: 

http://www.post.ca.gov/training/bestpractices/RecruitmentBestPrac.pdf 

Discover Policing. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.discoverpolicing.org 

Orrick, W. Dwayne, Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover of Police Personnel: Reliable, Practical, and Effective 

Solutions, Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 2008. 

RAND Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.rand.org/ise/centers/quality_policing/cops/

Raymond, Barbara, Laura J. Hickman, Laura Miller, and Jennifer S. Wong, Police Personnel Challenges 

After September 11: Anticipating Expanded Duties and a Changing Labor Pool, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND 

Corporation, OP-154-RC, 2005. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2005/RAND_OP154.pdf 

Rostker, Bernard, I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND 

Corporation, MG-265-RC, 2006. As of May 5, 2009: 

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG265.pdf 

Rostker, Bernard D., America Goes to War: Managing the Force During Times of Stress and Uncertainty, Santa 

Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-380-OSD, 2007. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG380.pdf 

Rostker, Bernard D., William M. Hix, and Jeremy M. Wilson, Recruitment and Retention: Lessons for the New 

Orleans Police Department, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-585-RC, 2007. As of May 5, 

2009:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG585.pdf 

Scrivner, Ellen, Innovations in Police Recruitment and Hiring: Hiring in the Spirit of Service, Washington, D.C.: 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2006. As of May 5, 2009:

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Taylor, Bruce, Bruce Kubu, Lorie Fridell, Carter Rees, Tom Jordan, and Jason Cheney, Cop Crunch: 

Identifying Strategies for Dealing with the Recruiting and Hiring Crisis in Law Enforcement, Washington, D.C.: 

Police Executive Research Forum, 2006. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/213800.pdf 

Wilson, Jeremy M., and Amy G. Cox, Community Policing and Crime: The Process and Impact of ProblemSolving in Oakland, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, TR-635-BPA, 2008. As of May 5, 2009: 

http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2008/RAND_TR635.pdf 

Wilson, Jeremy M., Amy G. Cox, Tommy L. Smith, Hans Bos, and Terry Fain, Community Policing and 

Violence Prevention in Oakland: Measure Y in Action, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, TR-546-

BPA, 2007. As of May 5, 2009:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2007/RAND_TR546.pdf