Police Recruitment and Selection Strategies: A Multidimensional Assessment of Form and Function

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

Abstract

Police agencies across the nation have implemented varying approaches to recruitment and selection of their workforces. Academic and other researchers have suggested still more approaches. While many tactics have been tried, few have been evaluated for their effectiveness. To evaluate different tactics and when they might be most effective, this research, with the support of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, is undertaking two tasks. First, using news articles from 2020 through 2022 as well as academic and professional research from recent years, it has identified nearly 250 different tactics that police agencies may try or have tried in recruitment and selection. These include administrative, financial, marketing, outreach, process, and specific selection tactics, among others. Second, it is asking approximately 30 practitioners and subject-matter experts to rank each of these tactics by their help in increasing staff levels and managing workload, immediacy of impact and ease of implementation, cost, and effects in increasing diversity, increasing quality of the workforce, and advancing community policing. Tactics will not be equally effective across the board. But identifying those most effective in given situations can help agencies identify which ones they should use for their circumstances.

Authors

• Jeremy Wilson, Michigan State University

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