For all the talk of recruitment struggles at the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, some local agencies are finding that hiring new officers has gotten easier.<\/p>\n
Take the California Highway Patrol, which in November graduated a class of 146 officers from its academy in West Sacramento. The statewide agency, which mainly polices traffic violations on freeways and oversees state property, has sworn in more than 600 new officers this year \u2014 a total that many departments would envy. <\/p>\n
While citing many of the same reasons that experts have given for why fewer people are going into law enforcement \u2014 continued scrutiny over officer misconduct, relatively low pay compared with other less dangerous professions, and a general lack of interest in long careers in government service \u2014 CHP Commissioner Robin Johnson said that some of the agency\u2019s recruitment problems were internal.<\/p>\n
For instance, she said, the agency for many years resisted outsourcing its background check process, partly because of the cost, but also to avoid going against tradition that said the process should be handled in-house. As a result, the roles were filled by officers who had had to juggle \u201cother duties besides background investigations\u201d \u2014 thereby prolonging the time it took to review an applicant\u2019s background, she said.<\/p>\n
An internal analysis found that roughly half of applicants were dropping out during background checks, she said.<\/p>\n
Now, the CHP uses a third-party company that Johnson said has significantly sped up the process for new recruits. The agency also moved from a paper application to an online form that allowed recruits to track the process and stay in regular contact with recruiters.<\/p>\n
The outside company does \u201cthe core of the background and then our employees are responsible for finalizing and doing the final interviews,\u201d Johnson said. The switch, she said, has allowed CHP to move more quickly to make conditional offers to qualified candidates \u2014 giving it an edge over other agencies. As a result, the number of applicants who went through the background process jumped from about 1,500 in fiscal year 2021-2022 to 4,500 last year, she said.<\/p>\n
The CHP has also revamped its marketing strategy.<\/p>\n
Its recruitment pitch was increasingly tailored to try to connect with a new generation of would-be officers, who unlike their predecessors \u201cmay not have necessarily set out to embark on a law enforcement career,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the important thing to a lot of people are money and [flexible] schedules,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Which is why the agency\u2019s recruitment ads have emphasized not only the $122,000 annual starting salaries for new hires, but also the numerous unique assignments and opportunities for advancement, she said: \u201cYou can fly a plane, ride a bike, ride a motorcycle, have a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency\u2019s November class was its biggest in years, and followed a class of 130 new officers that graduated in August. Even accounting for the fact that it graduates about half as many classes a year as the LAPD, those numbers are more than double the Los Angeles force.<\/p>\n
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told The Times that replenishing the department\u2019s depleted ranks remains among his top priorities.<\/p>\n
The department, like other agencies across the nation, has struggled to keep pace with attrition<\/a>, and these hiring difficulties come as the 2026 World Cup and Olympic Games loom as massive security challenges. LAPD officials also say short-staffing has cost the city millions on overtime \u2014 and could potentially put it on the hook for costlier future payouts. <\/p>\n For several weeks earlier this year, the department shrunk to just over 8,600 sworn members \u2014 its lowest head count in decades. McDonnell has said in the past that the department\u2019s best recruiters are its own officers, but that many of them were unwilling to vouch for the department amid complaints about stress and burnout, a lack of support from upper management and the poor condition of stations and vehicles. <\/p>\n On an optimistic note, he said, recent increases in recruit applications suggest that people are still interested in joining the LAPD \u2014 touting the early success of the department\u2019s own new recruitment campaign, nicknamed \u201cLAPD Unrivaled.\u201d<\/p>\n But McDonnell said that police and city officials must work together to address a slow, fragmented hiring process that has throttled recruitment, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Many \u201csolid\u201d potential recruits end up dropping out of consideration and leaving for other agencies out of frustration after waiting months to hear back, he said in a podcast interview this year. <\/p>\n The LAPD relies on the city\u2019s Personnel Department for background checks, but that department also has in recent years struggled with staffing issues. A recent study<\/a> found that tensions between the two departments has only made matters worse. The backlog that has developed has become so severe that for months Police Academy classes have averaged just over 30 recruits \u2014 down from an average of 50 to 60 just a few years ago, the chief said. <\/p>\n Earlier this year, Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive order to streamline the recruitment process, and department officials say it is now showing positive results. A recent class of 56 recruits started their training at the Police Academy \u2014 the largest class in the last five years, said Capt. Michael Bland, an LAPD spokesman.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a lot of promise for the future,\u201d Bland said.<\/p>\n The region\u2019s other major law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department, must also weather recruiting challenges.<\/p>\n Like other big-city agencies, the Sheriff\u2019s Department has had to contend with a recruitment bubble caused by pandemic-induced hiring freezes and now faces tougher competition for top candidates from other suburban law enforcement agencies, as well as the private sector, according to Sheriff Robert Luna. With Metro Transit expected to create its own police force, competition for the local pool of recruits will only grow in years to come, he said.<\/p>\n But there are signs that times are changing with his department, Luna said, starting with the growing number of recruits that graduate every month. When he first took the job, the average academy graduating class was in the high-30s and the department was receiving roughly 190 applications per week, he said. Since then, applications have jumped to about 300 per week, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy last two or three classes are well over 50: 55, 57. And they\u2019re incrementally getting larger,\u201d he boasted. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about getting more applications, it was about getting the right applications in our very focused campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n The agency has placed 400 new deputies over its eight academy classes since the start of the fiscal year in July \u2014 compared to the LAPD\u2019s 240. In the same period last year, the Sheriff\u2019s Department graduated 257 new deputies.<\/p>\n According to data from the state\u2019s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the LAPD, CHP and the Sheriff\u2019s Department saw recruitment dip significantly around the outbreak of the pandemic. But while the LAPD\u2019s attrition has outpaced recruitment in every fiscal year since 2016, the CHP saw its numbers pick back up starting in 2024, when it hired 655 new officers while losing 420. The Sheriff\u2019s Department\u2019s hiring numbers have also rebounded in recent years \u2014 reflecting a statewide trend.<\/p>\n Whether the LAPD can copy the success of the CHP and Sheriff\u2019s Department remains to be seen. Already, the issue of expanding the city\u2019s police force has become a fraught political issue.<\/p>\n Critics say that throwing money at the LAPD has done little to make a dent in its recruitment struggles and has come at the expense of other basic services such as park maintenance and street paving. They argue that with the dwindling number of cops, officials need to start investing more in community-led efforts that they say prioritize prevention over punishment and would go further in reducing crime. They worry, however, that it\u2019s more likely the shortage of officers will lead to heavier investments in surveillance and other police technology \u2014 tools they say will only further the historical harms caused by overbearing policing in Black and brown neighborhoods. <\/p>\n The department drew the ire<\/a> of some city councilmembers after they learned the LAPD was on track to blow past its budget allocation by adding 410 officers by summer 2026. The issue boiled over at a tense City Council meeting<\/a> earlier this month, where city leaders rebuffed the mayor\u2019s request to significantly increase police hiring. McDonnell warned them that more manpower is required to maintain public safety.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not an expert on where to find the money throughout the city, but I can tell you \u2026 if you knew what I know about the potential threats in the years ahead then we wouldn\u2019t be having this conversation today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all the talk of recruitment struggles at the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":475074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[215292,1582,276,31205,2451,10911,3040,28208,2961,4530,70036,224,5337,13009,112022,50289,30788,215291,12498,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-475073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-background-check-process","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chp","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-class","14":"tag-department","15":"tag-few-people","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-lapd","18":"tag-local-agency","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-number","22":"tag-other-agency","23":"tag-process","24":"tag-recruit","25":"tag-recruiting-officer","26":"tag-sheriff","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115791877393275396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}