Cops Say Low Morale And Department Scrutiny Are Driving Them Away From The Job

The historic calls for police accountability, reform and attempts at racial reckoning have left police departments nationwide struggling to keep the officers they have and attract new ones to the force.

The crisis comes as many cities continue to grapple with the fallout from the pandemic and sharp increases in shootings and murders.

In many places, police morale has plunged and retirements and resignations have soared. A June survey of nearly 200 departments by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a nonprofit think tank, shows a startling 45% increase in the retirement rate and a nearly 20% increase in resignations in 2020-21 compared to the previous year.

"We are in uncharted territory right now," PERF's Executive Director Chuck Wexler says. "Policing is being challenged in ways I haven't seen, ever."

The exodus is affecting departments large, small and in between. The research group's survey shows that in the largest departments with 500 hundred or more officers, the retirement rate increased by nearly 30%. Overall, new police hiring has dropped 5%.

And the timing of these staffing problems couldn't be worse: multiple cities are seeing startling increases in shootings and murders just as more areas start to return to a sense of normalcy following 15 months of pandemic-induced disruptions. Large cities have seen a 24% spike in killings so far this year, following a more than 30% rise in homicides last year. Overall crime figures, however, went down during the pandemic.

"So at that very moment you're hoping you can put police out there to try to deal with crime, you're seeing the workforce shrinking with an unprecedented number of retirements and resignations," Wexler says.

President Biden addressed the sharp rise in homicides and shootings Wednesday. He touted his administration's plan to tackle gun crime by cracking down on gun sellers who fail to run required background checks. The president is also redirecting some $350 billion in federal stimulus money toward police departments in cities where crime is up. The spike in violent crime follows nearly two decades in which violent crime trended downward. "This takes us back to levels, homicide rates, that we would have seen in the late '90s," says law professor Ronald Wright at Wake Forest University.

Exit interviews in the PERF survey and other data show that a key factor in the police resignations and retirements is the national conversation and protests that center on changing what the police do, how they're funded, and how to better hold officers accountable for abuse of force and racial bias.

Some cities are pushing for police to no longer be the first responders for persons in a mental health homeless or substance use crisis. Studies show that nearly a quarter of fatal police encounters followed calls about "disruptive behavior" directly tied to a person's mental illness and/or substance abuse disorder.

"Let's be honest, the conversation nationally has really been very, very much questioning police authority, what they do, how they do it," PERF's Wexler says. "So if you wake up every day and that's what you hear, it takes its toll."

For some officers that toll means a career change.

"You know, cops need to be resilient and they are. But for some, if they have an opportunity to do something different, that's what's happening," he says.

The recruitment challenge is likely to only get worse as the economy further rebounds in the months ahead. Recruitment was already a serious challenge before the pandemic and racial justice protests, as we've reported.

Making matters worse, it can take on average six months to a year or longer to recruit, hire and train an officer.

As Miami-Dade Police Chief Art Acevedo recently put it in an interview with NPR, addressing the crime surge amid the recruitment challenges is about more than expanding patrols in high-crime areas.

"It's also making sure that you have the proper supervision, the proper oversight and the proper mindset in terms of how we approach the way we treat the community," Acevedo said. "I think when we do that, people appreciate you. If you harass them, then they become, I think, upset, and you start heading your relationship in the wrong direction."

Activists and analysts alike say police leaders can and should do more to actively engage in the fraught and complex national conversation about race and law enforcement underway.

"How do we find a middle ground between where the police need to be and where the reform issues are?" Wexler asks, noting that the areas with the highest spikes in shootings are among the most economically disadvantaged or in communities with people of color. "So the people who most need the police right now, that's what we should be concerned about. Maybe there's an opportunity to to see a way to find a middle ground."