Police Staffing

As staffing challenges persist, police agencies are lowering minimum education requirements to increase applications. Yet, as this PSO Perspective discusses, doing so has important benefits and drawbacks for staffing, community relations, officer professionalism, and performance. In turn, agencies must take these trade-offs into account as they navigate potential workforce solutions. Read More

Police agencies continually struggle to attract and retain officers. Social exchange theory, suggesting that employees develop expectations of reciprocity with employers, provides one lens to examine such efforts. This work assesses 29 financial tactics, identified through a systematic review of sources, that police agencies may use to recruit and retain officers. It reports practitioner perceptions regarding these tactics on workforce levels, Page 2 of 2 workload management, speed of impact, ease of implementation, agency costs, quality of police work, officer…

Correctional agencies face persistent staffing shortages and declining morale. This study analyzed over 600 Indeed.com employee reviews from officers across eight state Departments of Corrections to examine perceptions of the work environment using social exchange theory. Thematic analysis revealed recurring concerns about understaffing, mandatory overtime, low wages, and organizational neglect. Officers described emotional exhaustion, diminished trust in leadership, and a mismatch between job demands and institutional support. Perceived inequities in workplace exchanges contributed to burnout, disengagement, and turnover intentions. Findings…

It is often difficult for law enforcement workforce planners to systematically address allocation, recruitment, training, and retention to effectively address staffing challenges. Taking up these broaderdiscussions of police workload and how best to manage it, however, enables certain key questions to be posed, including the following:• How does an agency know when it is understaffed?• How does an agency address the effects of understaffing?• What can be done to build better workforces?• Are there solutions other than staffing for managing…

This PSO Perspective summarizes lessons from our research, Dimensions of a Police Recruitment Program, appearing in Policing: An International Journal, 2025. It identifies the key elements of police recruitment programs, supporting a more systematic approach to recruitment by reviewing academic and practitioner literature from 2010 to 2024 and conducting interviews with 26 subject-mater experts. Read More

This study identifies key features of police recruitment programs, enabling a more systematic approach to recruitment. We reviewed academic and practitioner literature from 2010 to 2024 and interviewed 26 subject-matter experts to build a taxonomy of recruitment programs with dimensions and elements that target different levels within a police organization. At the organizational level, recruitment programs need supportive leadership, a healthy organizational culture, budgeted resources, and diverse goals. At the unit level, they need strategies to expedite processes, metrics to…

Although there is considerable research on conservation-oriented crime and policing in other protected spaces, research on national parks remains scarce. This work examines law enforcement in the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). Using a mixed-methods case study approach, this research draws on administrative and interview data regarding NPS law enforcement and calls for service as well as law enforcement ranger duties. The number of law enforcement rangers has decreased in the past 2 decades, while the number of park visitors has…

Police agencies may employ a variety of tactics to improve their recruitment processes, with the primary goal of increasing their number of officers. Yet, as this PSO Perspective discusses, tactics perform differently within and across a variety of dimensions—some supporting other agency goals, but some not doing so. In selecting tactics, agencies should be mindful of these multiple effects, and choose those likely to produce the combination of effects they most desire. Read More

The purpose of this special issue is to explore the multifaceted nature of police staffing issues and presentinnovative solutions that can be adapted globally and locally. By bringing togetherleading researchers and practitioners, this edition seeks to provide evidence-basedinsights and strategies to help police departments navigate the current staffing landscapeeffectively. Read More

This PSO Perspective summarizes and extends lessons from our research, “Reframing the Police Staffing Challenge: A Systems Approach to Workforce Planning and Managing Workload Demand,” appearing in Vol. 18 of Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. It highlights the advantages and disadvantages of referring to the current police staffing situation as a crisis, and how, by instead considering it a dynamic challenge, a systems approach offers evidence-based guidance for addressing it. Read More