Generational Challenges in Police Recruiting

From twenty year careers to two year stints. How can police recruiters build a law enforcement agency out of the latest generation?

As time marches on, all things change. In policing, that has been a rather interesting discussion. The old guard—of whom I feel an attachment to having spent a decade learning from them—is beginning to retire, while a new generation has been called to take up the mantle.

This “changing of the guard” has created quite a challenge, though. Older generations saw their careers as part of their identity. Newer generations have increasingly seen the same careers as a means to an end.

Thumbnail from a YouTube video wherein the hosts discuss generational differences in the workplace.

Loyalty to an organization or business has slowly eroded. This latest generation sees a career as a way to finance what they truly care about. What that is depends entirely upon the individual and what they deem significant.

I don’t hate this idea. After all, each of us is merely a number to whatever organization we work for. In policing, that number is literally stamped onto the badges we wear.

On the other hand, seeing your employer as a glorified ATM is a rather hollow way to look at a place where you spend a significant portion of your life. Nevertheless, newer generations are increasingly seeing the places they work as launch pads to their next adventure, rather than adventures unto themselves.

I do get it, though. I was all in on my department. In the first few years of my career I was willing to sacrifice personally to see my organization thrive. But as I found a wife and created a family, I’ve seen my place of work as a means to provide for my family, not the place I derive all my meaning.

While this new generation enters eligibility for a career in law enforcement, I may not agree with the specifics of how they view policing as a means to an end. However, I can find a kindred spirit in the notion that where I work is not all that I am.

But what does this mean for police recruiting efforts? In a previous article I discussed several issues with the sanitized billboard-style ads I’ve seen for police departments across the country. For a career with so many unique opportunities, these ads fall breathtakingly short. They manage to make policing look boring, which is quite impressive when you think about it.

But that’s a messaging problem. That falls on police recruiters. The challenge I’m talking about today has to do with the recipients of that message.

The Math Problem

Bear with me, because I promise the math discussion isn’t all that boring. Besides, math was never my strongest subject.

Even the woman in this meme understands these math concepts better than me.

Aside from the higher calling pitch, historically policing has relied on impressive benefits packages to get recruits in the door. Pensions are a thing of the past for most industries, but many police agencies still have pension programs. You work for a police agency to the point of retirement, and you get a guaranteed income wherein the city you work for pays you long after you’ve left their employ. You contribute a portion of your paycheck while you’re working and the city pays a portion on top of that.

Some places have matching 401k plans or Roth IRAs, but that’s not everywhere. And even if they were, pensions are defined benefit plans, rather than defined contribution plans. The ins and outs are a bit technical, but suffice it to say, defined benefit plans can be far more beneficial to the employee than defined contribution plans in certain respects.

That all sounds great, but this whole system relies on people working at the same place until they retire. This new generation doesn’t do that, typically. They hop from one career or one company or one agency to the next. When I was in college, this was already starting to happen. One of my professors cited a fascinating statistic:

The average college student will change jobs eleven times by the time they’re thirty years old.

Police recruiters plan for the rare instance of finding a recruit who will never change jobs. That’s not sustainable, but it’s what we in the law enforcement industry try to attract.

Every recruit we get through the academy gives us the misguided assumption that we just added another twenty plus year officer to our ranks. In reality, we’ve probably attracted a temporary employee who will likely remain with us for two to five years before searching for their next opportunity.

I don’t fault the new generation for the math being wrong. I fault us as an industry for not adapting to this new job hunting environment.

We have to make the math work for us. We have to recognize that comparing our recruiting numbers to years past and claiming we’ve hit our old benchmark isn’t acceptable. If years ago we could snag a recruit and get twenty years out of them, we have to now assume we need to get four or five new recruits over that twenty year time span to make that same math work.

The People Problem

This is the trickier part. Math doesn’t lie, but people are difficult creatures to understand. Their motivations change, their enthusiasm ebbs and flows. Their priorities fluctuate wildly from year to year.

Like I said above, I was all in for my first few years. I missed the wedding of a high school friend because I didn’t want to take off work. I was in the phase many cops consider their “I’d do this job for free I love it so much” phase of my career.

Yes, Mike Rowe, my job has gotten me this dirty before too.

But then I met a girl, got married, settled down, had a kid, and now I’m in my “I do this job to support my family” phase of my career.

I turn down job opportunities because I’d rather take my daughter to the children’s museum. I say no to working extra shifts because I promised my wife I’d get dinner with her sister and brother-in-law next weekend, and I’d rather hang out with them than an angry transient who calls 911 every time the wind changes direction.

Even for someone who grew up as a cop in an era where twenty year careers were the norm, my priorities changed. I can’t imagine how extreme the shift has been for the newest generation who really doesn’t view policing as a calling, but rather an interesting experience.

I’ve seen young officers hit the streets and go through their “I’d do this job for free I love it so much” phase, but it’s a hell of a lot shorter than mine was. They also get jaded faster because, quite frankly, the job isn’t as appealing as it used to be.

Short staffing has put them on the line with less resources and more demands over and over again. The stress is higher, the public support is lower, and all the while their leadership continues to march on like they’re dealing with cops from a different era.

The generational differences don’t just come from the inevitable march of time, they come from the fact that those in charge have less and less in common with those they lead.

Even the rare young officers who want a stable twenty year career in law enforcement will just find another agency to work for every few years when they become disenfranchised with the disconnected leadership they find at their current department.

I’ve seen that first hand at my agency as officers who were trained up by Austin taxpayer dollars jumped to outlying suburbs that pay roughly the same with less political crap to deal with. Austinites have effectively subsidized the training of many surrounding police departments.

How Do We Fix This?

I can’t speak to the political aspect of the problem. Departments in places like Austin will take a longer time to recover from the defunding efforts that plagued 2020 than places where cops were better supported by their communities.

That’s not within any police department’s control. What is in their control is how they recruit new officers.

Recruiters at every agency have to reconcile with the fact that the latest generation of cops has different motivations. Like I said above, recruiters have to contend with the fact that twenty year career veterans are becoming less and less common. They have to plan for a lower retention rate and adjust accordingly.

Rather than assume every cadet who enters the police academy is a potential long term hire, they have to assume a five year maximum. If the new recruit exceeds this expectation, that’s fantastic. But if a recruit falls short of it, recruiters have to be prepared to bring on more people to replace them.

I’d recommend seeking advice from private sector recruiters who’ve been dealing with this new environment for a while now. My wife once worked in an industry where the average employee remains at their current company for eighteen months. Recruiters in that industry are far more efficient at sifting through new hires and on boarding them in order to maximize the limited time they have.

It’s not a fun solution, nor an easy one to implement in a career like law enforcement. The on boarding process at my department consists of an eight month academy and a three month field training program.

Police cadets learning about traffic stop procedures. Image courtesy of Jay Janner/American-Statesman.

That’s nearly a year of training before a new cop is on their own in a patrol car. Unless policing suddenly becomes one of the most desirable jobs in the country again, or suddenly this new generation figures out they want a more stable job over the next twenty years, change is sorely needed.

Otherwise, police departments can’t ignore the challenges that will come with hiring Gen Z and Gen Alpha cops as we progress into this new era of police recruiting and training.