This work assesses 225 recruitment tactics that law enforcement agencies may use to attract candidates to their agencies. The authors review rankings of these tactics by 30 law enforcement practitioners on dimensions of staffing levels, workload management, timing of effects, ease of implementation, agency costs, quality of policing, and community policing outcomes.
The analysis shows that no single recruitment tactic is universally optimal. Rather, effectiveness will depend on agency-specific circumstances and priorities. Tactics such as mentoring applicants, providing individualized guidance, streamlining hiring processes, and conducting community outreach rank highly for increasing staffing levels and improving other performance dimensions. Financial incentives such as increasing pay can boost both recruitment and retention but entail significant costs. Modifying hiring requirements may be a relatively quick way to increase staffing levels but it can also raise concerns about quality of policing.
Because police agencies may need to address multiple goals in recruitment, the analysis examines how tactics perform in a variety of scenarios. Developing a recruitment website, for example, can be helpful for agencies seeking to improve staffing relatively quickly at relatively low cost. Targeting a broad range of college majors among recruits may help agencies who are seeking to improve the quality of their force and the quality of their community policing efforts particularly.
The analysis highlights three lessons for police departments. First, they should use the tactics that appear to be most tailored to their environment. Second, they need to understand what works under their particular circumstances. Third, they should consider tactics that can perform across the most relevant combination of dimensions they need to address.
