Home »

Police Real-Life Recruiting problem; Inside law enforcement recruiting efforts nationwide

Posted: September 13th, 2006 04:52 PM PDT

Law enforcement agencies nationwide are facing a hiring crisis. In response, some have adopted creative tactics to lure prospective officers, turning to new media and hiring marketing consultants to help them shape their campaigns. Others continue to rely on the same strategies they have employed for decades. Regardless of how departments are choosing to recruit, most are huddled together in the same boat - the U.S.S. Understaffed.

The lifeboat many agencies are clinging to is electronic media. "The majority of people who find us go through the Internet," reports Deputy Jessica Sullivan, a recruiter for the King County (Washington) Sheriff's Office. The Seattle-based agency currently has 720 sworn personnel and is looking to hire an additional 15 to 30 deputies.

"The civil service laws require us to post all jobs in our newspaper of record," Sullivan says. "We also run them in the online version of the paper. Most of the responses come from the online version," she adds.

The King County office also created a user-friendly Web site. The agency has tried other tactics, including recruiting junkets, but they did not pay off, Sullivan reports: "Last November, we made a big trip to San Diego. It cost $65,000, and we recruited four people. It wasn't cost effective."

San Diego is a favorite recruiting spot on the West Coast because of a proliferation of military bases there. The King County Sheriff's Office has contracted with a marketing firm to develop a professional campaign. In addition, they use other methods, such as offering a cash bonus to employees who refer a candidate who goes on to complete the deputy training program. The agency's starting salary is more than $45,000, and it has no college requirement or maximum age limit.

Starring your local police officer

Another agency successfully employing alternative strategies is the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Los Angeles, California, is a city defined by the entertainment industry, so it's no surprise Hollywood has come to the LAPD. "Our new recruiting tools are three movies that run on our Web site," says Officer Elena Avila, a full-time recruitment officer. "The films feature real officers in real scenarios - they're not actors," she stresses.

The department has paid area theaters to run the movies as trailers before feature films.

The LAPD has 9,200 officers, but for the last several years has been running at almost 10 percent under capacity, with 750 unfilled positions, despite a starting salary of $53,000 with a high school diploma.

The department doesn't rely only on Hollywood to draw in recruits. It offers a lateral transfer program for officers from other departments, and actively seeks experienced cops. In Detroit, where a large number of officers are being pink-slipped, the LAPD is clamoring to be the first in line to recruit them.

The Las Vegas (Nevada) Metropolitan Police Department uses a different type of movie to entice applicants. The television spot, which also runs on the department's dedicated recruiting Web site, www.protectthecity.com, is an animated black-and-white action cartoon that appeals to the younger generation.

According to Officer Chris Boyd, the department also runs 60-second radio spots in both English and Spanish, and brings its test to various locations around the country, including places as far away as Minnesota and New York City.

Prestige factor

With a $45,000 starting salary, a job with Las Vegas Metro can look pretty good to officers with the NYPD, where starting pay is only $25,000, in one of the most expensive cities in the country. While NYPD salary increases to $32,000 after completion of the six-month academy training, officers don't reach top pay of $59,000 until they have five years on the job.

Sgt. James Rector of the NYPD Recruitment Section says that while the department can't compete with many other agencies in terms of money, a big incentive is the possibility of promotion. "We have 38,000 officers, so the opportunities for advancement are greater than in a smaller department," he explains. "We also have more than 200 specialized units that officers can move into."

Plus, there's the prestige factor: "Hey, we're the NYPD," Rector says. "That's a big selling point."

The department's goal is to put on an additional 2,000 officers, but it doesn't want someone else's castoffs - the maximum age is 35, and there's no lateral transfer program. It recruits through the Internet, and uses radio and TV commercials as well as college appearances to advertise upcoming exams.

Big bucks

In contrast, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department offers a $5,000 signing bonus to law enforcement officers who come over from other agencies. The starting salary is $45,000, and there is no maximum age cutoff.

"All of a sudden, we're getting a lot more candidates," says Lt. Mike Barletta of the Personnel Division.

One of the reasons for its newfound popularity may be that the San Diego Police Department, which has traditionally poached deputies from the sheriff's departments because of its higher pay and excellent retirement program, is now experiencing financial difficulties. San Diego PD officers are faced with pay and benefit cuts, so many of them are sniffing out new opportunities with the sheriff's department. The police department is funded by the city, while the sheriff's department gets its money from the governing body for the entire county.

Another reason candidates are flocking to the sheriff's department may be the home-buying assistance it offers in the form of a 30-year, non-interest loan of up to $75,000.

The sheriff's department has 2,100 sworn employees and is looking increase that number by 10 percent. To help in those efforts, the test is now given once a week, and the minimum age requirement for deputies who work in the detention center has been lowered to 18. Recruiting deputies travel around the country to find candidates, and the department has increased its advertising budget from $75,000 to $400,000.

The only snag is that it is no longer allowed to recruit on some of the larger military bases in San Diego. "The military wants to keep its personnel in the service," Barletta explains. "We're their competition for the same pool of employees."

In nearby Contra Costa County, California, the City of Brentwood Police Department provides even more generous enticements to prospective officers. Not only is the salary $63,000 after completion of the academy, the department also offers a lateral transfer program as well as a $10,000 signing bonus.

Brentwood officers receive $2,000 when they begin employment, another $3,000 after 18 months, and an additional $5,000 after five years of service. And the goodies don't stop there: the city offers $28,000 as a "silent second" mortgage that is forgiven at a rate of 5 percent annually over the course of 20 years. The 54-officer department would like to expand its force by an additional eight officers.

Non-traditional candidates

With competition fierce for qualified applicants, agencies across the board are making tremendous efforts to expand their candidate pools by recruiting "non-traditional" officers: women, ethnic minorities, and gays and lesbians.

According to Monique Bond, the director of news affairs for the Chicago Police Department, that agency is waging an aggressive campaign to widen its applicant pool.

The Chicago PD has 13,000 sworn officers and is aiming to increase both the number of officers as well as the diversity of the force, Bond says. "We're working with faith-based institutions in the minority community to get the word out that we're recruiting."

The Illinois agency has also updated its print marketing materials to feature minority officers. "We've changed the images to lure minorities into a new police department," she says. The department offers a starting salary of $42,000, for which two years of college are required.

The campaign has been effective, doubling the number of overall applicants and increasing minority applicants by 16 percent. The department has also expanded its test dates from once annually to four times a year. "Applicants can now take the test online at various locations around the city," Bond adds.

Lt. Alfred Lewers Jr., the coordinator of the Recruiting, Background Investigations and Training Unit for the Fort Lauderdale (Florida) Police Department, says that his unit's mission is to develop positive change. "We're not just about recruiting officers," he says.

Instead, he wants to promote the image of the police in communities where it hasn't always been positive. Part of that goal is to bring more minority officers on to the 514-officer force, which is hiring for 19 positions now and will have 25 open positions next year.

The department has made great strides in increasing diversity, Lewers says. "We are engaged in 'recruiting from the margins,' " he explains. "We're looking at people who wouldn't normally consider a police career. Between 2001 and the present, we have added 5x the number of black officers that we previously had. We also have a large Haitian population here, so we've added five Creole-speaking Haitian-American officers, plus another three of Arabic descent."

The department works toward its hiring goals by being omnipresent. "We're everywhere," Lewers says. "But the key is to be places where other departments aren't."

That includes advertising in non-traditional print venues such as "Essence" and women's health and fitness magazines to appeal to female applicants. "We also reach out to people at traditionally black colleges," he says. "We've gone to New York City to attend the West Indian Day parade and Creole parade in Brooklyn. We even went to Haiti once."

The department, which starts officers out at $41,000, requires a high school diploma and has no maximum age limit. The lateral transfer program also provides for a graduated pay scale, and there is a vehicle-take-home program for officers.

Aggressive recruiting

Officer Ken Dies of the Community Relations Division of the Akron (Ohio) Police Department also engages in aggressive recruiting. "We need to be not just active, but proactive in recruiting," Dies stresses. "The old days, when people wanted to and dreamed of becoming police officers, are over."

To help reach its goal of increasing the force from 435 to 480 officers, the department hired a public relations firm to give a professional look to its recruiting materials. "Our new posters and publications feature a 'Crimefighters Wanted' theme," Dies says.

Akron crimefighters can expect a starting salary of $42,000 from the first day they start in the academy. They also receive free uniforms and equipment. While only a high school diploma is required, a percentage bonus is paid for college, residency or military service. The maximum age to join is 31.

APD is hiring its first new police officers in four years, so its campaign needed to be effective. "The city was strapped for cash," Dies explains. "We're not going to be recruiting anymore after this year's test is given, either. I have no idea when the next test will be given."

Presumably, the department will resume its recruiting from colleges, businesses, security firms and military groups once it gets the go-ahead for the next new hires.

While many agencies are trying anything and everything they can think of to entice candidates, some are content to stay with the same old tactics. What they all have in common, however, is an effort to appeal to candidates who are much more electronically oriented than those from previous generations - or even from five or 10 years ago.

Department Web sites are the norm, and online advertising is practically a requirement. Police opportunities are posted on law enforcement-specific sites such as officer.com and lawenforcementjobs.com. But some departments are also trying tactics like posting job openings on craigslist.org and Google Adwords, where the opportunities pop up in an ad on the side of the page when a user enters a search term such as "police jobs."

Whether it's a movie, a Web site or a gargantuan signing bonus, it's clear that law enforcement agencies will have to continue to think outside the box if they are to fill their ranks.