"We're hearing all over the country that there is a requirement problem with police officers," he said. <>/ExtGState<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 25 0 R 28 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> "But also looking at things, like, how do you attract a larger base of candidates to choose from. x][sF~wj- \pK\D8:DA_ R&)y|\{_z[xu6u9:;q"(7oW?^2/:^""EUM_07C|&*"x/7(PzIR{* X/5?;|B0"Q,wFAD ^4c?O&~4*~tL oCvV{Khyc$J,zAgAMj?LF1]'"" "There are many, many people just like that in our communities," she said. Wexler said that not everyone who's gone to college goes on to become a good police officer -- "I know some people who've gone to college and they're complete idiots, absolutely no common sense" -- and there's value in hiring older candidates with life experience who've been in the workforce or couldn't go to school because they're raising a family. "There were historical barriers that were preventing people from using life experiences to have waivers. Chicago's most recent recruit class in February was 48% female, 65% Hispanic, Brown said. 4 0 obj About 3,800 people took the Chicago police department's entrance exam over the four months it was offered last year, compared to as many as 22,000 in recent years. Agencies of all sizes reported an increase in retirements from 2019 to 2020, and large agencies saw the largest increase. There were 23.6% more retirements in 2021 than in 2019. By Rebekah Riess, Emma Tucker and Peter Nickeas, CNN. According to their findings, collected from about 180 police departments of various sizes: There were 42.7% more resignations in 2021 than in 2019. Relaxing standards could mean allowing tattoos or prior use of marijuana. ", "The 60 hours of college credit requirement can be prohibitive," Brown said two weeks ago at a. m endobj <> "We do know a more educated workforce is, you're getting a candidate pool (that) recognizes importance of education." "We want to look at best practices of how do we finally turn the generational problem of crime in our cities.". &o'"N si 0iQ}|XcnA9O c\L}Ph1O=9r&I|~#qM4|@\w6eD5.t2yBBH 9T1wt "The job has become much more demanding, complicated, sophisticated in terms of technology, in terms of writing, all of the tools -- judgment, decision making -- all of the things we expect that translates into police officers of future," said. 1i8(DsNk_$H@hF1;<4t%u\Kw8~d6 About 3,800 people took the Chicago Police Department's entrance exam over the four months it was offered last year, compared to as many as 22,000 in previous years. Brown said the restrictions on recruit class sizes early in the pandemic to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 had an impact on the overall attrition rate, as well as an outbreak of Covid-19 in the summer of 2020 that prompted a shutdown of the police academy. % The racial and ethnic makeup of the department in its entirety includes 20% African American, 4% Asian, 45% White, 30% Hispanic and "various other categories of diversity" that account for 1% of officers, he added. 1 0 obj "So the catch up is really about getting the applicant pool much wider, much more experienced, and more importantly, much more diverse as we fill our vacancies," Brown said Tuesday. During a news conference last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams applauded Chicago's recruitment practices after a trip to the city to meet with Mayor Lori Lightfoot. At least two other big-city police departments have made similar moves in recent years. (CNN)After Chicago Police announced two weeks ago that the department would waive a college credit requirement for some recruits, 400 candidates applied that same day and the department has had continued spikes of applicants since then, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said Tuesday. The department, like others in the country continues to face Covid-related staffing shortages and a national and local reckoning that's driven potential new police officers away from the profession. Migdalia Bulnes, deputy chief of the newly created recruiting team for the agency, said that their goal was to open the pool of applicants to people who have work experience but were not able to attend college to obtain the 60 credit hours required for the job. So those were the individuals that we thought of when we started talking about this program and exactly what we wanted to see come into this police department. "We're going to look to duplicate that in New York City and so in the brief conversation I had, I know that this is an entry way to learn from each other," he added. The Chicago move is part of a broader trend of relaxing standards to entice more people into becoming police officers. yB9$H z M'}_?. > In Chicago, about 3,800 people took the police department's entry exam over the, The Chicago Police Department's attrition rate more than doubled from 4% in 2020 to 8.5% in 2021, according to Brown. 3 0 obj <> But broadly, dropping the education requirement is "worrisome," he said. Chicago police declined to comment on how many people took recent entrance exams, or were hired from those exams, but called the pool of candidates "very small. ", Chicago police officers won't be charged in shootings of Adam Toledo and Anthony Alvarez, used to require some college for officers, education requirement for new recruits is a GED or high school diploma, NYPD top cop pick highlights the slow rise of female police chiefs nationwide, Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, Homicides in 22 US cities continue to rise in 2021 but at a slower pace, report says. %PDF-1.7 2 0 obj z1tcc-\KD-7F? That changed slightly from 10 years earlier, when the city's Black population was larger. stream endobj <>/Metadata 378 0 R/ViewerPreferences 379 0 R>> Agencies of all sizes reported substantial increases in resignations from 2019 to 2021. endobj If you talk to any chief today, they will tell you they're just not seeing the same number of people they've seen in years," Wexler said. Police departments across the country are struggling to maintain their workforces, according to recent survey data compiled by the Police Executive Research Forum. CNN's Sam Romano, Priya Krishnakumar and Laura Studley contributed to this report. The city, as of the most recent census, is 33% White, 29.2% Black, and 28.6% Hispanic or Latino. "They are leaders, they have a job, they have experience, they have communication, they're making decisions, they're filling out reports.