Examining the Nature and Evolution of the Police Staffing Crisis: A Media Content Analysis

• In Event: Police Recruitment and Selection: Field Lessons from a Platform of MSU-COPS Research (Sponsored by Division of Policing)

Abstract

Systemic and acute challenges have created a dynamic and challenging environment for police workforce planning. For many agencies, attrition has outpaced hiring, resulting in annual net losses of staff. To help address staffing shortages, the law enforcement community has instituted a wide array of innovations to expand the applicant pool, attract more candidates, minimize loss during the hiring process, and retain staff. With support from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to better understand the current context of staffing challenges and how agencies have responded, we analyzed a stratified, random sample of news media coverage from January 2018 through December 2023. We used systematic keyword searches to identify 900 relevant news articles indexed in the Nexis Uni and Proquest US Newstream databases. Using a grounded-theory process for identifying and coding themes, our analysis provides many lessons about the circumstances leading to staffing challenges, how such challenges may vary by community, types of innovations proposed and instituted to address different staffing issues, and context for shaping the implementation of chosen strategies. The results will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers and academics interested in police workforce planning.

Authors

• Jeffrey Gruenewald, University of Arkansas

• Jeremy Wilson, Michigan State University

• Rosa Isabel Rivera, Michigan State University

• Clifford A. Grammich, Birdhill Research and Communications, LLC