Seattle has been criticized for its struggles hiring and keeping cops but the problems aren’t unique to the city. The Justice Department has released a new report detailing recommendations “to address the challenges in recruitment and retention law enforcement agencies are facing nationwide.”
The new report commissioned by Attorney General Merrick Garland recommends police leaders do more to understand the needs of the communities they serve while modernizing outdated hiring practices.
The new report attributes the staffing issues to the COVID-19 pandemic, the shifting labor market, officer safety concerns, and community response to issues like use of force and biased policing.
While Seattle public safety advocates have been quick to blame the Seattle City Council for efforts to shift more spending toward services and away from traditional policing, the larger factors around the labor market and the proliferation of gun violence are also major issues when it comes to recruiting cops.
Seattle recruitment efforts by Mayor Bruce Harrell have focused on elements like a hiring bonus plan hoped to grow the city’s police force to 1,500 sworn officers by 2027. It currently rosters fewer than 1,000.
Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz has rolled out new strategies including changes in scheduling as he has adjusted to the staffing reality.
The federal report says police forces like Seattle should reconsider “officer eligibility requirements to better reflect modern police work,” and make changes “modernizing and accelerating the hiring process,” “investing in officer health, safety, and wellbeing,” and “working with community leaders to target recruitment efforts toward diverse candidates and potential recruits who might otherwise not consider law enforcement as a career.”
“In recent years, several significant events have led to rapid changes and shifts in community expectations of what people want from their police and other public servants,” the report begins.
Seattle, meanwhile, must also arrive at an agreement on a new contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild which remains under negotiation in a protracted labor battle that continues to flare publicly with disputes over how many sworn officers the city needs.
Seattle’s police force is also moving forward without federal oversight for the first time in 12 years after a consent decree brought over issues of excessive force and community trust was lifted earlier this year.
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Here’s an Instagram post from last year which provides some more context for that line graph: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChIaeM3P2-M/?img_index=1
Very valuable link. Thank you.
Provides more context? No all it does is include abolitionist views that are so insane and unrealistic that the only thing they’d result in is more crime. Criminals don’t all just want to go to treatment or stop victimizing others if they’re given a free apartment. So the idea that we don’t need cops and can abolish the police and jails is complete nonsense unless you want to live in some sort of crime ridden hell hole.
It’s like trying to reform while swelling a legally sanctioned, poorly trained street gang. No one questions the basic assumptions of a police force in spite of decades of study.
I don’t know that we need MORE cops, given that they manage to send five patrol cars out to detain a single teenager stealing construction equipment, and CHS Blog just reported a huge police response for the guy who accidentally shot himself in the foot by accident.
The problem seems more like they just aren’t deployed well at all. Given all the crap I see out in the open every day on Broadway, it astounds me that there’s never any regular police presence there. And last night on a busy Halloween night, there were no cops downtown around 3rd and Pike, where you’d expect a little increased security. Why can’t we have some beat cops to help deter crime before it starts We live off Broadway, and I’ve been dealing with more tweaked out trespassers (sometimes with weapons) on my property than in any previous year. It has to stop. People clearly think they can get away with this behavior, and it shows.
About 2 months ago, I happened upon two bike cops patrolling near Tashkent Park, and was thrilled for their presence. They told me they were only patrolling one shift a week, but that the East Precinct commanders might be expanding that. But this obviously hasn’t happened, probably due to the greatly reduced police force in recent years. I hope that Mayor Harrell’s effort to hire more officers is successful, because that is badly needed.
You are clearly very wise & intelligent…
SPD is full of liars. This is a very misleading graph.
“Want to hire more cops”
No thanks. I’d like to demolish the entire department and start over. Thanks for asking though!
Start over with what, exactly?
This graph is wildly misleading and deceptive.
How so? Please explain?
No union, no qualified immunity
Instead pay best in nation wages and benefits. Demand the best educated and highly motivated cops you can find.
Community Expectations like: “If you are in mental distress and call the cops, they’ll shoot you, then insist you rang in to orchestrate a ‘suicide by cop’ and tell anyone who hosts them on their show that story”