Police Staffing

Police staffing challenges are both acute and systemic. Those seeking to address police staffing shortages, whether for one or many agencies, must ask, and have answered, some challenging questions about the actual work the agency needs to complete, its desired approach to accomplish it, and the extent to which it is doing so most efficiently. While personnel are critical to any organization, staff is only one way to address the workload of police agencies. This discussion has introduced some examples…

The purpose of this guidebook is to provide the law enforcement field with information about existing resources for promoting workforce diversity through a variety of staffing mechanisms. More specifically, it focuses on creating a pipeline of officers, marketing, selection, staffing for recruitment, mentorship, organizational climate, career progression, analysis and benchmarking, and substantive focus on women and race/ethnicity. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to promote awareness of research and professional publications that may not have been visible…

Communication is critical to the police workforce development process, from recruitment, selection and hiring to training, career progression and executive succession planning. To be sure, each stage requires unique forms of communication in terms of style, form, content, purpose and other attributes. Modestly, this chapter focuses on the first stage of recruitment. It aims to frame key aspects of the recruitment process and the importance of communication to them, highlighting roles, opportunities and challenges for both the organization and recruit.…

In the fall of 2016, we launched a collaborative effort to study law enforcement staffing for the National Park Service. As part of this research, this report aims to illustrate for park law enforcement leadership how data and analysis can inform deployment and strategy. Primary topics covered include crime analysis, traffic accident analysis, call for service data, work schedules, problem-oriented policing, and program evaluation.

This report summarizes the lessons we developed as part of an assessment of law enforcement in the National Park Service. It examines the staffing landscape and what rangers do, key management issues, as well as various approaches to determining staffing levels. Importantly, it offers a new data-driven approach to ranger staffing that integrates principles of operational risk management.

Based on a national assessment of law enforcement provision in the National Park Service, this guide illustrates a data-driven approach for estimating the appropriate number of rangers that should be assigned to a park to meet strategic objectives and conform to the principles of operational risk management.

As part of a national assessment of law enforcement provision in the National Park Service (NPS), this report summarizes an examination of personnel and workload for the Investigative Services Branch (ISB) and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). ISB provides investigative services for offenses committed at NPS sites whereas OPR investigates complaints against NPS personnel.

This report summarizes ongoing research regarding staffing in the National Park Service.

This report describes the results of a staffing and organization analysis of the United States Park Police (USPP). The analysis is based on interviews conducted and data gathered in 2017 corresponding to all the U.S. Park Police Field Offices: Washington DC, New York City, and San Francisco.