Developing Effective Police Workforces: The Importance of Staffing Structures - Interview at the 2010 NIJ Conference

The interview addresses the findings of a national survey of police recruitment retention, which found that some agencies have a large proportion of officers in a third-year service cohort (20-30 years). Other agencies have a large percentage of officers in the junior cohort (0-10 years). This creates a number of management problems as these officers progress through the system; for example, this involves training, getting field experience, supervision, and the cost of providing patrol equipment. It is important to manage officers so that they feel they have a significant career ahead of them while they are meeting the needs of the organization. It is important to set goals for officers and manage them proactively over time rather than respond to them only when there is a significant problem. Agency planners must keep track of the phases of each officer's career within the agency in relation to agency needs; otherwise, when officers in an older cohort begin to retire, there are no younger officers prepared to assume the roles of the officers who have retired, many of whom may have held critical leadership roles.