The hiring of police officers is rising for the first year since 2020, a new survey shows.
Police departments across the U.S. have struggled to remain staffed for the past few years as officers left in droves following the Defund the Police movement and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and rioting that peaked after the death of George Floyd in 2020. For the first time since the nationwide unrest and lockdowns, total staffing has increased among police agencies with some small and medium bodies reporting more sworn officers than in January 2020, according to data obtained by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
“For the first time since the start of the pandemic, agencies reported a year-over-year increase in total sworn staffing. Responding agencies reported hiring more sworn officers in 2023 than in any of the previous four years. Agencies saw fewer resignations in 2023 than they did in 2021 or 2022, though they still had more officers resign last year than in 2019 or 2020. And retirements dropped back down to roughly where they were in 2019 after being elevated for the previous three years,” the survey reads.
Trending: New PERF survey shows police agencies have turned a corner with staffing challengeshttps://t.co/CIDihkx36X
— Chuck Wexler (@CWexlerPERF) April 28, 2024
“Small and medium agencies now have more sworn officers than they had in January 2020. In large agencies, sworn staffing slightly increased during 2023, but it is still more than 5 percent below where it was in January 2020,” the survey continues. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Police Report Contradicts Pro-Defund The Police DC Councilman’s Mugging Story)
Total sworn officers hired by police agencies landed at 11,098 in 2023, the survey shows. This rebound was nearly 30% more than in 2020, when only 8,558 total sworn officers hired were reported. In 2020, police agencies hired nearly 18% less total sworn officers than in 2019, when 10,430 were hired.
Police agencies reported 151,335 total sworn officers on January 1, 2024, a 0.4% increase from 150,714 total sworn officers reported on Jan. 1, 2023, according to PERF. Sworn staffing data from 2024 was still 4.9% lower than Jan. 1, 2020, when there were 159,199 reported total sworn officers.
In 2022, a total of 6,492 sworn officers resigned from police agencies, according to PERF’s survey. In 2023, 5,090 sworn officers resigned — a 21.6% decrease from the year prior. Meanwhile, 5,333 sworn officers retired in 2023, a nearly 24% decrease from 7,003 sworn officer retirements in 2022.