The recruitment and selection of exceptional personnel are critical to a police department achieving its mission; however, agencies nationwide are experiencing difficulty finding and retaining qualified officers. This book provides a systematic approach to successful employee recruitment in both law and enforcement and criminal justice agencies. The text discusses in detail the legal environment and necessity to develop a diverse workforce. It further outlines the need, benefits, and steps for identifying a department's core values, conducting an organizational assessment, and completing a sta.
The recruitment and selection of exceptional personnel are critical to a police department achieving its mission; however, agencies nationwide are experiencing difficulty finding and retaining qualified officers. This book provides a systematic approach to successful employee recruitment in both law and enforcement and criminal justice agencies. The text discusses in detail the legal environment and necessity to develop a diverse workforce. It further outlines the need, benefits, and steps for identifying a department's core values, conducting an organizational assessment, and completing a staffing analysis, which provides the foundation for reducing turnover and improving recruitment and retention. The text offers the means to identify an agency's labor market and tailor recruitment efforts accordingly. Also explored is the need to market a department and develop an employer brand, along with developing a relationship with the media. A variety of recruitment techniques are presented, including referral systems, poaching, electronic and print media, and career fairs. A special section is included for improving minority and female recruitment. The text identifies the factors attributable to high levels of attrition and outlines actions to build a strong organizational culture and slow the churn of turnover. The text also focuses on the mentoring process to guide employees through the various stages of their career. While the concepts of the book are theoretically based, emphasis is placed on reliable, practical, and effective solutions for addressing the issues of recruitment, retention, and turnover of police personnel.
A summary of the presentations, discussions, and opinions offered by panelists at a National Summit on Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment held at RAND in June 2008. Topics examined include changing police workforce issues, strategies being employed, lessons that could be learned from other organizations such as the military, and in-depth analyses of police recruiting and retention in selected cities.
Many police departments report difficulties in creating a workforce that represents community demographics, is committed to providing its employees the opportunity for long-term police careers, and effectively implements community policing. This book summarizes lessons on recruiting and retaining effective workforces.
Since Hurricane Katrina, resignations from the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) have increased, and the department went more than a year without recruiting enough candidates to justify a police academy training course. The authors present practical recommendations for change that could help the NOPD improve recruiting and retention. Issues addressed include the lack of affordable post-Katrina housing, the fact that the families of many police officers no longer live in the New Orleans area, the destroyed departmental infrastructure, and a budget that does not provide enough resources to meet basic needs. They focus on compensation, including housing; the promotion process and the career management system; recruiting; the mix of officers and civilians; and ways to improve the morale of the NOPD. The recommendations, which are specifically tailored to the unique circumstances of the NOPD, include (1) using civilian employees, where appropriate, for jobs currently being performed by uniformed officers; (2) developing a proactive recruiting program; (3) offering some of the city's housing stock in-kind to police officers or selling the property and using the proceeds to improve compensation; (4) increasing the frequency of promotion examinations; (5) eliminating the backlog of promotions to higher levels in the department; (6) restructuring compensation to attract recruits and retain serving officers; (7) establishing a first-responders charter school; and (8) rebuilding the police infrastructure to improve morale.
"Personnel management is a critical but oft neglected function of police organizations. While much attention is given to recruiting and retention, these are only tools for accomplishing a larger goal: achieving and maintaining the profile of officers by experience and rank that satisfies agency needs and officer career aspirations. Police agencies often have little ability to assess their organization and environment, and they receive little guidance on how best to build and maintain their workforces. In this monograph, the authors seek to fill the gap of information available to police agencies through a survey on their recruitment and retention practices. The survey, sent to every U.S. police agency with at least 300 sworn officers, sought to document such characteristics as authorized and actual strength by rank, officer work and qualifications, compensation, and recruiting efforts. The authors used these data to provide an overview of current recruitment and retention practices, to describe how they affected police recruitment and personnel profiles, and to identify future research needs. Findings include that police compensation, city size, and crime rates had statistically significant effects on police recruiting. Advertising and recruiting incentives had little effect on the number of recruits. Cohort sizes and structures highlighted current and future personnel management challenges. To facilitate comparative and longitudinal analyses of police staffing, the authors recommend ongoing national data collection."--P. [4] of cover.
Built on a foundation of nearly 1,200 references, Leadership and Management in Police Organizations is a highly readable text that shows how organizational theory and behavior can be applied to improve the operations, leadership, and management of law enforcement. Author Matthew J. Giblin emphasizes leadership and management as separate skills in successful police supervisors and executives, illustrating to students how the two skills combine to improve individual and organizational efficacy in policing. Readers will come away with a stronger understanding of why organizational decisions matter and the impact research can have on police departments.
This guidebook summarizes for police practitioners lessons on recruiting and retaining diverse, effective workforces. It provides a means for local officials to identify what has been tried elsewhere and what might be applicable in their own communities. It is a broad analysis of issues confronting many agencies and how these have developed over time. Each agency will face unique circumstances that it must consider in workforce planning; this report can provide guidance on relevant lessons learned elsewhere.
This California study consists of a futures study on employing part-time police officers and the impact on officer recruitment and retention by the year 2000; a model strategic plan; and a transition management plan for the police department in Fresno, California. The futures study indicates that the demand for law enforcement personnel will continue to increase with a continuing increase in California's population. Simultaneously, the median retirement age will decrease, and the availability of workers in the 18-24 age category (the group from which law enforcement hires) will continue to decline through 1995. A panel of experts forecasted that part-time positions will be required for future policing, that the recruiting pool for women will double, that the retention rate for women officers will rise, and that older officers will view part-time work as an option to retirement from full-time employment. The model organization studied for strategic planning development was the Fresno Police Department. An organizational analysis of this agency was conducted to determine its weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and strengths. A panel developed policies deemed desirable and feasible. These are an extended career program through the use of part-time employment and a retiree part-time employment job pool. A study then examined the critical mass needed to make the strategic plan happen.
The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Policing, Communication, and Society brings together well-regarded academics and experienced practitioners to explore how communication intersects with policing in areas such as cop-culture, race and ethnicity, terrorism and hate crimes, social media, police reform, crowd violence, and many more. By combining research and theory in criminology, psychology, and communication, this handbook provides a foundation for identifying and understanding many of the issues that challenge police and the public in today’s society. It is an important and comprehensive analysis of the enormous changes in the roles of gender in society, digital technology, social media, and organizational structures have impacted policing and public perceptions about law enforcement.
