Recruiting for change: shifting focus to address a workforce crisis

ABSTRACT

Policing in the United States is currently undergoing a serious workforce crisis. Drawing on Van Maanen’s police socialization theory, we suggest that police recruiting videos provide an opportunity for departments to send clear signals to recruits about their attitudes and values that will improve recruiting. We employ a randomized vignette survey design to test the effectiveness of recruiting videos. Our findings demonstrate that college students indicate a greater willingness to become a police officer when recruiting videos focus on police officers’ service to the community. This effect is particularly strong for students who indicate they desire to make a positive change in the world.

KEYWORDS:

• Police recruiting
• police culture
• college students
• police motivation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the students who participated in this study, as well as the Charleston Police Department and Chief Luther Reynolds for being supportive of the importance of research in improving policing. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge the important role of NIJ’s Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) program in creating the connections that led to this paper. CPD was one of the original LEADS agencies, Dr. McLean is a LEADS Academic, Ofc. Cherry is a LEADS Scholar, and Dr. Alpert is the former advisor to NIJ on the LEADS program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Interestingly, Van Maanen’s (1975) survey findings from 50 years ago are similar to some of the findings noted above about police recruiting. In particular, he found that the importance of salary and benefits are ‘overrated’ by police departments and that ‘most recruitment occurs via generational and friendship networks involving on-line police officers.’

2. Professors recruiting students in their class took steps to ensure that students did not take the survey more than once.

3. The College of Policing in the UK has also taken steps to ensure that new hires either have a college degree or will undergo an apprenticeship program to earn a college degree as part of becoming an officer.

4. Note that while this does represent a lack of diversity in the sample, it is reflective of a lack of diversity on these college campuses as these demographics are within two percentage points of statistics at these universities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kyle McLean

Kyle McLean is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice at Clemson University and a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Sciences (LEADS) Academic. Dr. McLean’s research interests focus on understanding police-community relations and evaluating efforts to reform the police to better reflect community demands of policing. Accordingly, Dr. McLean has conducted research in the areas of police legitimacy, police training, police culture, and police use of force. His recent work has been published in Justice Quarterly, Criminology and Public Policy, and the Journal of Experimental Criminology.

Terry Cherry

Senior Police Officer Terry Cherry has been with the Charleston Police Department in Charleston, South Carolina for over 10 years and is currently serving as the agency’s recruiter. In her role as recruiter, she developed a five-year recruitment strategic plan in compliance with the department’s racial bias audit. Officer Cherry has applied evidence-based policing to drive changes in recruitment processes, policies, and marketing efforts. In 2020, she was selected as a NIJ LEADS scholar and was the recipient of IACP’s 40 under 40. She is currently a National Policing Institute rank and file fellow, a New Blue Fellow, and the recipient of the NAWLEE Ina Mae “Tiny” Miller Award. Senior Police Officer Cherry holds a BA from UCLA and an MBA in global business from Pepperdine University.

Geoffrey P. Alpert

Geoffrey P. Alpert is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He has taught at the FBI National Academy, FLETC and The Senior Management Institute for Police and is a member of the Research Advisory Board for the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). He serves as a Federal Monitor for the New Orleans Police Department and is on the compliance team for the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau. He testified to the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing as well as President Trump’s Commission on Law Enforcement.