On February 27, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara spoke to the media after multiple shootings in the city. In 2020, it was reduced by 40%.
Alex Coleman/Star Tribune via Getty Images
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Alex Coleman/Star Tribune via Getty Images
When Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara took over the department in 2022, he said it was like walking into a funeral home.
“People weren’t even talking to each other,” he said. “A lot of members have told me openly, ‘Yeah, if anyone asks me they’re thinking about becoming a police officer, I tell them, no way, don’t come here. Everybody hates us. Everybody’s leaving. Go to Minnie. Anywhere outside Apolis.
After all, this is a police force and an officer murdered George Floyd. O’Hara said it took a toll. He estimated the department’s current staffing is 40% lower than in 2020.
Since 2020, police forces in major cities across the United States have been reduced. Many responded by significantly increasing officer salaries. But many say it will take more than money to attract people to the police force and keep them there.
How many police officers are enough?
Large agencies employ about 5 percent fewer officers than they did four years ago, according to the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
In Minneapolis, residents are feeling the impact of fewer investigators and fewer police officers on the streets, O’Hara said.
“That means the response time for some things is much longer,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re forgetting about cases, but it does mean we’re prioritizing them.”
He said officers have less time to check in and have less direct contact with community members; they now rely more on single-occupancy vehicles and are concerned that calling for backup may take longer than before.
Typically, city officials calculate the number of officers needed to fully staff a department based on a variety of factors, including population levels, crime trends and budget allocations.
But researchers say there is no magic number and the evidence is mixed on whether increasing police numbers or increasing investment in policing can predict crime rates.
Ben Grunwald, a law professor at Duke University, said not enough is known yet to say with certainty what the optimal number of police officers is.
“If you talk to police chiefs and law enforcement experts, they will tell you we need more police because police help reduce violent crime and solve other problems in the community,” Grunwald said. “On the other hand, you can talk to activists and they’ll tell you, ‘No, we don’t need more police officers. What we need is fewer police officers because police officers cause a lot of social harm to communities.
“Departments have to try to incentivize.”
PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler said it’s “a sign of the times” that large agencies have trouble recruiting and retaining police officers.
“The current challenge facing American police is that more and more people are resigning and retiring, while fewer and fewer people want to become police officers,” he said. “So departments have to try to incentivize.”
In at least 20 major U.S. cities, money is the primary motivating factor. Thousands of police officers across the country have received significant pay increases since the start of 2023.
New students in Austin will receive a $15,000 signing bonus. In Washington, D.C., the recruiting bonus is $25,000.
In May, the Seattle City Council approved a 23% increase in starting salaries for officers. In Kansas City, the 2024-25 budget includes a 30% increase in police pay.
Earlier this month, the Minneapolis City Council approved a 22% raise for officers over the next three years, a raise that will cost the city an additional $9 million.
Critics in Minneapolis are angry about the increase in police pay as the department costs the city tens of millions of dollars due to police misconduct. That’s why they need higher wages, O’Hara said.
“If we want quality policing, we have to pay quality wages. It’s an extremely difficult job, and no one is interested in it,” O’Hara said. “I think compensation is not the only factor, but it is an important part of the turnaround.”
Retired New York City police officer Gil Snyder agrees.
“We choose to be law enforcement. People choose to be teachers, people choose to be nurses. When you do that, you know what you’re getting into. But when you get the paycheck, you’re not always happy with it,” Si said Ned, who is also the policy director of the R Street Institute, a think tank that advocates for limited government.
“It’s going to take a lot of money for me to stay.”
But just as there’s no magic number for how many police officers a city should have, the evidence that higher wages allow more people to become police officers and stay in the profession is mixed at best.
“It’s not all about money. It’s about quality of life,” Wexler said.
Last year, when the Los Angeles City Council voted to raise officers’ starting salaries by 13 percent, the city’s Police Department reported an increase in applications.
A 2024 study also found that higher salaries made some college students more willing to apply for the job. But the report noted that nearly half of the students surveyed said they had “no chance” of applying, including many criminal justice majors.
Another study this year identified burnout and psychological distress as the top reasons for police turnover. Police officers are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder than the general population. They are also more likely to die by suicide.
“Honestly, a lot of times it’s not about money. It’s a lot about frustration at work,” said Colin Whittington, a former police officer in northern Virginia.
Whittington, who left the force in 2022 after seven years on the job, said he felt he was being treated unfairly for the actions of other officers.
“You get cursed at, or send nasty messages, or leave notes on your cruiser, for police incidents that happen out of state that I never see, and get pulled into their actions, even though I Always hold yourself to very high standards,” he said.
Whittington now provides career counseling and has written a book to help police officers and other first responders considering leaving law enforcement.
Matt Rivers is a former police officer in Urbana, Illinois, who left the force in 2017 after nine years on the job. For him, the stress of work was bleeding into family life.
“I just remember kids getting upset over very small things, like they dropped their spoons in the kitchen or something like that. I remember thinking, ‘That’s not like me,'” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of money for me to stay.”
“The purpose will transcend money.”
There are also some cities that are bucking the trend. In fact, smaller departments have rebounded after a decline and now have more officers on staff than they did in 2020, according to PERF data.
Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of nearly 90,000 people just a few miles south of Minneapolis, is overcrowded in the sector.
“Bloomington is definitely my first choice. I’m from here. I play sports here. I care deeply about this community,” said Officer Devon Barnum, 23, who has not yet taken the job. to one year.
On a recent afternoon patrol, he fielded call after call: a tense argument between a mother and her son. Conduct welfare checks on women who are not at work. A traffic stop. Received a call to secure the apartment complex.
“Every day is challenging,” Barnum said. “Obviously, I would say it’s an extremely stressful job, right? The things you see in this job… the average person doesn’t see them.
No amount of money could convince him to go to another police station, he said.
“I’m not going anywhere. We have the support of the community. Our chief is great,” he said. “You don’t do this job for the money.”
To be clear, Bloomington has increased officer salaries — by about 3 percent annually over the past few years. Booker Hodges, the city’s police chief, said he had no plans beyond that.
“I fundamentally don’t think paying people these incentives will work,” he said. “I want people here to have purpose, because purpose will transcend money… Purpose will keep people working. Purpose will get you through those tough times.
Hodges was the city’s first black police chief and a former president of the Minneapolis NAACP. He understands that not everyone will like the police. His goal is respect for each other, the community and the officers.
He said this creates a positive work environment. Otherwise, he said understaffing can lead to massive overtime, creating a vicious cycle.
“If you have to work 16 hours a day, the first question is: How awake are you, right? And the second question is: How much quality time can you take out to recharge and spend time with your family, right? So, if you With so much work, are you the best person? The answer is no,” he said.
Hodges said you want the police. Go out for health and happiness, not just for money.
