How to Address Police Shortages and Staffing Challenges
Staffing shortages in policing are not a new issue.
The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) published a report on the policing workforce crisis in September 2019, prior to the exacerbated staffing crisis caused by the ‘great resignation’ and calls for defunding of the police following the death of George Floyd. According to PERF in 2019, hiring and retention of qualified police officers was increasingly challenging with many agencies experiencing significant decreases in the number of applicants.
Almost a year later, PERF published a survey of police workforce trends which indicated overall police staffing was down approximately 7% across the various sized agencies who participated in the survey. Additional key findings of the survey include a significant increase in resignations (27%) and retirements (45%) among the agencies surveyed.
Issues such as morale, the national climate surrounding law enforcement and “fallout from the pandemic” are a few of the reasons why officers are leaving the profession. Yet, the expectations of law enforcement from our communities have not changed. In fact, they have increased. Our communities have greater expectations of our police departments than they ever have before.
Increasing demands for law enforcement to work closer with social services addressing mental health issues and the opioid epidemic to calls for police to address the increasing levels of gun violence throughout various communities in the country. Police staffing shortages are also impacting call response times as well as the availability of police personnel to conduct proactive policing activities.
Police departments are taking a number of steps to address staffing issues.
For example, the Tucson Police Department is “no longer sending officers to non-urgent calls”. Many agencies are working with city leadership to increase funding for recruitment efforts. Other agencies are requiring their officers to work mandatory overtime. This was seen during the high number of protests nationwide after the death of George Floyd in May 2020. In Portland, “overtime jumped by nearly 200% in June” 2020. During a time when morale is already significantly low, what impact do these efforts to address staffing issues have on police officers?
Impacts on officer wellness can have a cascading effect and must be considered when developing strategies to address staffing issues. The mental and physical health of police officers should be a priority.The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Report highlights Officer Wellness and Safety as Pillar Six promoting agencies to develop “scientifically supported shift lengths”. This should not only include regular duty shifts, but should also take into consideration overtime and off-duty/extra duty work.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Does your agency have policies in place that dictate the number of overtime hours an officer is allowed to work?
Are there rules requiring a certain number of hours of rest in between shifts?
Does your agency leadership have the ability to identify which officers are working an excessive amount of overtime?
Are your officers working off-duty or extra duty details in addition to their regular shift plus overtime?
These are all important questions that can be answered with the right off-duty management software in place.
PowerDetails has over 50 standardized reports to help agencies enforce policies and reduce officer fatigue. Additionally, the PowerDetails platform can be utilized to efficiently manage overtime in addition to your agency off-duty/extra duty details.
The platform allows agencies to post overtime positions while enforcing agency policies and rules regarding the maximum number of hours allowed, as well as rest periods between shifts. This encourages equitable distribution of additional shifts while reducing officer fatigue.
Since the PowerDetails platform can seamlessly and automatically assign shifts based on agency rules, the workload on coordinating staff is also reduced thus allowing those staff to assist with other tasks. Lastly, by building an API with your agency’s on-duty platform, PowerDetails can utilize on duty information to automatically enforce policy in terms of limits to overtime or extra duty hours worked per 24 hours, per week or per month.
To learn more about how PowerDetails can help you address accountability issues surrounding extra duty employment, you can contact us to learn more.
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