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USA Today
4 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Cities hope to attract more police officers by cutting education requirements
Some cities hope that relaxing education hiring standards may solve lingering staffing shortages. Is that a good idea? The Dallas Police Department had been shrinking for years, losing more officers than they hired ‒ and competition for recruits was fierce. Then the hiring woes got even more dire in the fall of 2024, when voters passed a proposition that required the force have at least 4,000 officers, hundreds more than it had even at its peak in 2010. So the department tried a new recruiting strategy: Make it easier to hire by dropping the requirement that applicants have college credits under their belt. Dallas isn't alone. It's among a number cities to relax college education hiring requirements for officers, a yearslong trend that includes Chicago, Memphis, Louisville, and New Orleans. The changes bring the cities back in alignment with much of the nation. More than 80% - of law enforcement agencies only require a high school diploma to be hired, according to a 2017 survey of nearly 1,000 departments nationwide. 'In a perfect world, would you want police officers to be college educated? Absolutely, but this is where policing is now,' said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. 'There simply is more demand for police officers - for qualified police officers - than there is a supply.' Research has found there are some benefits to stricter standards: college-educated officers tend to use less force, have fewer complaints against them and write better reports. But some police researchers say these findings aren't definitive and relaxing education requirements can make the job accessible to more Americans amid the rising cost of college. In the weeks since the Dallas police made the change, applications have begun to roll in from people who previously wouldn't have been able to become a police officer, according to Luis Mata, a spokesperson for the department. Recruits must still pass a civil service test, physical exam, background checks as well as psychological and medical evaluations before they can enter the 10-month-long police academy. 'I've been asked this question, 'does education have any sort of bearing on whether somebody is going to be successful through your academy?'' said Mata. 'And I would say that we have people with master's degrees, bachelor's degrees and associate's that fail out of our academy. It's really about applying yourself.' Why are police changing education requirements? Law enforcement officials say they are trying new recruitment strategies like dropping education requirements in part due to nationwide shortages. Federal officials have said law enforcement faced a "historic crisis in recruiting and retaining" officers because of a tight labor market during the pandemic and protests over high profile police killings, though recent data suggests the crisis may be easing. A few locations have reexamined their education requirements in 2025, including: New York: The NYPD announced in February it would lower its education requirement from 60 college credits to 24. The department said in a statement it reached out to thousands of previously ineligible candidates in hopes of amassing 35,000 officers by the fall of 2026. California: After a push to require prospective officers under 25 to get a bachelor's degree, lawmakers are considering new legislation that would require officers have either a bachelor's degree, an associate's degree, a modern policing degree or a professional policing certificate, which requires at least 15 credits that can be partially obtained through police academy coursework. The requirements don't apply to people with at least four years of military service or law enforcement experience from another state. 'I still believe that somebody with a high school diploma should be able to access the occupation because right now, with the recruiting pool, the amount of candidates that we actually have available to us is not as big as it used to be back in the days,' said Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a federation of associations that represents more than 83,000 officers in the state. Does college education help police officers? Experts have been calling for a better educated police force for decades, including two federal commissions that raised the issue in the 1930s and 1960s. Research has found education may improve officers' interactions with the public. College-educated officers use force less often and have less disciplinary action taken against them than their peers without a degree, a 2007 study published in Criminal Justice and Behavior found. This may be particularly important for officers serving minority communities. College exposes students to people from various backgrounds, allowing them to develop "a greater appreciation and compassion for others," said one 2023 paper on the value of college education for police officers, which was published in the journal Research in Higher Education. College-educated officers have also been found to be better report writers, which 'could translate into better investigations, higher court case filings, fewer evidentiary constitutional challenges, fewer false confessions or wrongful convictions, and/or more successful prosecution,' according to a 2017 report on the role of higher education in policing. "On the whole, more research indicates positive effects than no correlation or negative consequences," the report said. But the evidence that education can make you a better police officer isn't definitive, according to both the study and Eugene A. Paoline III, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida. "Experience is also something that matters in police behavior and their attitudes," he said. "And we find that the same way that college-educated people might use less force, more experienced people use less force because they find alternate ways to handle situations." Paoline said his research has also found some drawbacks, including that officers with higher education levels are less satisfied with their job. Education requirements also create an additional barrier for certain groups, including those who can't afford college, he said. Though the share of Americans with bachelor's degree has been rising, Hispanic and Black adults were more likely than their White counterparts to say cost is a major reason they didn't complete a four-year degree, according to the Pew Research Center. 'I am a fan of police having a college experience, college degree,' he said. 'At the same time, I'm saying, if you don't have an education requirement, it's not going to be harmful. It's not going to be a total detriment to the field.' Does lowering education standards solve staffing shortages? Several departments have seen a surge in applications after nixing college education requirements, but there are some signs that loosening standards doesn't necessarily solve staffing problems. Both Wexler and Paoline said they couldn't point to examples of a department hiring more people after removing education requirements. In the month after the Philadelphia Police Department dropped its requirement that recruits have at least two years of college credit under their belt in 2016, applications skyrocketed to more than 5,700, up from a high of less than 2,000 in previous years' application drives, according to Captain John Walker. 'I think it just was because people who couldn't apply before … just decided they wanted to be police officers,' said Walker. But Philly police staffing stayed flat in 2016 at 96% and dipped slightly the following year, according to Walker. 'Now we sit at 82% staffing,' Walker said. Applications to the New Orleans Police Department rose after they jettisoned a college education requirement ten years ago, spiking to a high of 7,440 in 2017, according to city data. But the department continued to hire around 100 people each year and far fewer after 2020. Even without the education requirement, recruitment has remained a challenge according to Matthew Stone, of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation. 'The general goal is to increase the amount into the top of that funnel, and this is what we were tasked with over the last 10 years, which is marketing the applications,' he said.
USA Today
4 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Cities hope to attract more police officers by cutting education requirements
Some cities hope that relaxing education hiring standards may solve lingering staffing shortages. Is that a good idea? The Dallas Police Department had been shrinking for years, losing more officers than they hired ‒ and competition for recruits was fierce. Then the hiring woes got even more dire in the fall of 2024, when voters passed a proposition that required the force have at least 4,000 officers, hundreds more than it had even at its peak in 2010. So the department tried a new recruiting strategy: Make it easier to hire by dropping the requirement that applicants have college credits under their belt. Dallas isn't alone. It's among a number cities to relax college education hiring requirements for officers, a yearslong trend that includes Chicago, Memphis, Louisville, and New Orleans. The changes bring the cities back in alignment with much of the nation. More than 80% - of law enforcement agencies only require a high school diploma to be hired, according to a 2017 survey of nearly 1,000 departments nationwide. 'In a perfect world, would you want police officers to be college educated? Absolutely, but this is where policing is now,' said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. 'There simply is more demand for police officers - for qualified police officers - than there is a supply.' Research has found there are some benefits to stricter standards: college-educated officers tend to use less force, have fewer complaints against them and write better reports. But some police researchers say these findings aren't definitive and relaxing education requirements can make the job accessible to more Americans amid the rising cost of college. In the weeks since the Dallas police made the change, applications have begun to roll in from people who previously wouldn't have been able to become a police officer, according to Luis Mata, a spokesperson for the department. Recruits must still pass a civil service test, physical exam, background checks as well as psychological and medical evaluations before they can enter the 10-month-long police academy. 'I've been asked this question, 'does education have any sort of bearing on whether somebody is going to be successful through your academy?'' said Mata. 'And I would say that we have people with master's degrees, bachelor's degrees and associate's that fail out of our academy. It's really about applying yourself.' Why are police changing education requirements? Law enforcement officials say they are trying new recruitment strategies like dropping education requirements in part due to nationwide shortages. Federal officials have said law enforcement faced a "historic crisis in recruiting and retaining" officers because of a tight labor market during the pandemic and protests over high profile police killings, though recent data suggests the crisis may be easing. A few locations have reexamined their education requirements in 2025, including: 'I still believe that somebody with a high school diploma should be able to access the occupation because right now, with the recruiting pool, the amount of candidates that we actually have available to us is not as big as it used to be back in the days,' said Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a federation of associations that represents more than 83,000 officers in the state. Does college education help police officers? Experts have been calling for a better educated police force for decades, including two federal commissions that raised the issue in the 1930s and 1960s. Research has found education may improve officers' interactions with the public. College-educated officers use force less often and have less disciplinary action taken against them than their peers without a degree, a 2007 study published in Criminal Justice and Behavior found. This may be particularly important for officers serving minority communities. College exposes students to people from various backgrounds, allowing them to develop "a greater appreciation and compassion for others," said one 2023 paperon the value of college education for police officers, which was published in the journal Research in Higher Education. College-educated officers have also been found to be better report writers, which 'could translate into better investigations, higher court case filings, fewer evidentiary constitutional challenges, fewer false confessions or wrongful convictions, and/or more successful prosecution,' according to a 2017 report on the role of higher education in policing. "On the whole, more research indicates positive effects than no correlation or negative consequences," the report said. But the evidence that education can make you a better police officer isn't definitive, according to both the study and Eugene A. Paoline III, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida. "Experience is also something that matters in police behavior and their attitudes," he said. "And we find that the same way that college-educated people might use less force, more experienced people use less force because they find alternate ways to handle situations." Paoline said his research has also found some drawbacks, including that officers with higher education levels are less satisfied with their job. Education requirements also create an additional barrier for certain groups, including those who can't afford college, he said. Though the share of Americans with bachelor's degree has been rising, Hispanic and Black adults were more likely than their White counterparts to say cost is a major reason they didn't complete a four-year degree, according to the Pew Research Center. 'I am a fan of police having a college experience, college degree,' he said. 'At the same time, I'm saying, if you don't have an education requirement, it's not going to be harmful. It's not going to be a total detriment to the field.' Does lowering education standards solve staffing shortages? Several departments have seen a surge in applications after nixing college education requirements, but there are some signs that loosening standards doesn't necessarily solve staffing problems. Both Wexler and Paoline said they couldn't point to examples of a department hiring more people after removing education requirements. In the month after the Philadelphia Police Department dropped its requirement that recruits have at least two years of college credit under their belt in 2016, applications skyrocketed to more than 5,700, up from a high of less than 2,000 in previous years' application drives, according to Captain John Walker. 'I think it just was because people who couldn't apply before … just decided they wanted to be police officers,' said Walker. But Philly police staffing stayed flat in 2016 at 96% and dipped slightly the following year, according to Walker. 'Now we sit at 82% staffing,' Walker said. Applications to the New Orleans Police Department rose after they jettisoned a college education requirement ten years ago, spiking to a high of 7,440 in 2017, according to city data. But the department continued to hire around 100 people each year and far fewer after 2020. Even without the education requirement, recruitment has remained a challenge according to Matthew Stone, of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation. 'The general goal is to increase the amount into the top of that funnel, and this is what we were tasked with over the last 10 years, which is marketing the applications,' he said.
Axios
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Phoenix to announce police chief finalists soon
Phoenix expects to name finalists for the city's next police chief next week. Why it matters: Phoenix's next police chief will oversee a department that is now free of the threat of federal oversight following a damning U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report that had highlighted violations of civil and constitutional rights, but has still publicly committed to following through on reforms. Catch up quick: The city named four finalists for the position in March, but restarted its search in early April after Michael Sullivan, who'd served as interim chief since 2022, withdrew from consideration. City officials expected to get additional candidates who didn't previously apply because of a perception that Sullivan was a likely shoo-in. Sullivan's last day on the job was in late April, and acting chief Dennis Orender has led the department since. State of play: Phoenix received 39 applicants by its May 5 deadline, per spokesperson Dan Wilson, but the city won't release names until after the Police Executive Research Forum, a firm hired to assist with its search, reviews the candidates. The city expects to name finalists the week of June 9, Wilson said. A public candidate forum will be held June 16. The public can submit feedback and questions for the finalists though the city's community survey. The city expects to announce its new chief sometime in July. Flashback: The DOJ under the Biden administration issued a report last year following a three-year investigation that found a pattern of discriminatory enforcement and violations of constitutional rights by Phoenix police. Those patterns and practices included: Using excessive force, including unnecessary deadly force. Arresting people experiencing homelessness without reasonable suspicion of crimes and improperly seizing or destroying their property. Engaging in discriminatory enforcement against Black, Latino and Native American people. Violating the rights of protesters engaging in constitutionally protected speech. Discriminatory enforcement against people with behavioral health problems. Yes, but: Now-President Trump's election in November, which occurred before Phoenix began its search for a police chief, was widely expected to end any chance of federal oversight, including a potential consent decree opposed by most of the City Council. Trump's DOJ last month ended its investigation and retracted the report, taking similar steps in several other cities where the feds had investigated police departments and scrapping proposed consent decrees in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis. What's next: City officials after the election committed to moving forward with reforms, regardless of what happened with the investigation under the Trump administration.
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Miami Herald
28-05-2025
- Miami Herald
A Miami cop on car hood shot driver through windshield at music festival. Is it permitted?
Most law enforcement experts who watched the video of Miami Police Officer Mauricio Delgado lying on the hood of a car and shooting a music festival-goer through the front windshield say the officer was within his rights if he felt his life or others were in danger. But their observations come with a caveat: It's unclear exactly what led to Delgado lying face down on the hood of Menelek Emmanuel Clarke's black, two-door BMW, the officer's weapon almost pressed against the front windshield as the car crawled north on Biscayne Boulevard. Cellphone video taken from the scene outside the Caribbean music festival at Bayfront Park on Sunday night doesn't show the lead-up to the confrontation. The footage begins with Delgado on the car hood. And police haven't said if the officer activated his body worn camera — which is mandatory during interactions with the public, but not during traffic enforcement. READ MORE: Police officer shot driver outside music festival in Miami's Bayfront Park: officials 'I can't see what precipitated it, so I can't speculate,' said Dave Magnusson, a former high-ranking Miami police officer and El Portal police chief. 'What I can tell you is that the guy gets out of his car reaching for his waistband, he probably got lucky. He did then follow commands and was taken into custody.' Police say Delgado was one of four dozen officers working a shift directing traffic on the boulevard just outside the park during the Best of the Best music festival on Sunday. They say Clarke, 21, disobeyed an order to stop and drove at a slow pace into Delgado, who somehow ended up on vehicle's hood. Clarke's 17-year-old sister who was in the back seat, said the contact with the officer was accidental. They had just dropped their mother off who was to meet relatives with tickets to the concert, and they were looking for parking. Clarke, who records show lives in Broward County and was born in North Carolina, was shot several times and is recovering at Jackson Memorial's Ryder Trauma Center. Another law enforcement veteran who watched the video said the interaction raises questions. Chuck Wexler, executive director of Washington D.C.'s Police Executive Research Forum, said you'd need to review the officer's camera and surrounding surveillance video and piece together the facts to figure out exactly what happened. 'Sometimes it's a misunderstanding. It's hard to say at this point what justified the officer firing his weapon,' Wexler said. 'The video raises more questions than there are answers. You just don't know and it would be wrong to jump to conclusions.' Strict rules on firing into moving vehicle Miami police policy only allows officers to fire their weapons at a moving vehicle if deadly force is being used against the officer or another person by means other than the moving vehicle. Simply, unless someone inside Clarke's car was threatening Delgado harm, he should not have fired his weapon. 'The moving vehicle itself shall not presumptively constitute a threat that justifies an officer's use of deadly force. An officer threatened by an oncoming vehicle shall move out of its path instead of discharging a firearm at it or any of its occupants,' the policy states. 'The only exception is an act of terrorism where the vehicle is being used as a weapon.' The shooting at a vehicle policy was changed and tightened more than two decades ago by Miami Police Chief John Timoney. After the policy change, Miami Police went 22 months without an officer firing a weapon at a person. READ MORE: 'Law enforcement giant' John Timoney loses final battle to lung cancer Late Wednesday afternoon, Miami Police said they expect to charge Clarke with several crimes before the end of the week that include aggravated battery, leaving the scene of a crash, resisting arrest with violence and failure to obey a police command. And they still have not publicly released the name the officer who fired his weapon. Several law enforcement sources familiar with the incident confirmed to the Miami Herald the shooter was Delgado, who works the midnight shift in Allapattah and was working traffic duty the evening Clarke was shot. Several texts and calls to Miami's Fraternal Order of Police had not been returned as of late Wednesday. Clarke's sister Sherylann Clarke, who was in the car during the shooting, told Herald news partner WFOR Channel 4 that her brother did not hit Delgado intentionally. She said he was trying to maneuver around the officer when Delgado jumped in front of the car. READ MORE: Driver didn't mean to hit officer outside Miami music festival, sister says Clarke is represented by Hollywood defense attorney Michael Orenstein, who hasn't said much about the incident. Best of the Best goes bad Clarke was shot inside his car on Biscayne Boulevard at Northeast Second Street just after the yearly Caribbean music festival got underway. It was about 7:15 p.m. Most of the crowd estimated at 12,000 were in the park when Delgado ended up on the hood of Clarke's black BMW and opened fire. Cellphone video of the incident, which was posted on the Only in Dade website and on YouTube, begins with Clarke driving north on Biscayne and going past the crosswalk at Second Street with Delgado flat on his stomach on the hood in uniform. He's wearing a yellow vest and his weapon, in his right hand, is pointed inches from the windshield. As the car turned slowly west on Second Street, Delgado fires at least three shots, his legs sliding off the hood on the passenger front side of the car. A flash of the muzzle can be seen and the gunshots heard. The vehicle comes to a stop directly in front of a Miami police car. Bystanders are heard on the video asking what was happening. Clarke jumps out of his car in a white shirt and jeans and walks quickly east toward the park, his hands going down to his waist, then up in the air as ordered. He doesn't appear to be injured. He then obeys police commands to go to the ground, turns over and is handcuffed. Blood can be seen on the back of his shirt as an officer gets on top of him. Delgado was treated for minor injuries and released. Orenstein said Clarke was shot three times. He was hit in the right arm and chest, which exited through his back but caused a lung to collapse. And his attorney said Clarke was also shot in the bullet had not been removed as of Wednesday afternoon. Police officer stationed at hospital Orenstein, who is representing Clarke in an unrelated case in Broward County, said Wednesday that he's only seen the same social media videos as everyone else and that a Miami police officer has been stationed outside his client's hospital room at Jackson. 'At this point I don't know a lot of details and I don't believe my client committed those offenses,' Orenstein said. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is reviewing the shooting to determine if it was a criminal act. Miami Police will investigate the charges against Clarke, which are expected to be filed formally when he's released from the hospital. Miami Herald staff writer Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
Chicago Tribune
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Alexander M. Dunn: Winnetka officer shortage reflects a state and national crisis for policing
The news out of Winnetka that it can't recruit police officers was predictable. As a result, the village has turned to private security to patrol its streets and act as the 'eyes and ears' for a Winnetka Police Department stretched thin by a national hiring crisis. For those of us who advocate for law enforcement, this development is an obvious result of a legislative and political climate that has systematically undermined policing in Illinois. Winnetka's police chief admits the department is understaffed, with recruitment and extensive training requirements leaving them unable to meet the pressing need for qualified officers. Lack of recruitment isn't an isolated issue — it's a crisis rippling across Illinois, driven by years of hostile rhetoric, punitive legislation and a cultural shift that has turned the uniform into a target rather than a respected symbol. The defund-the-police movement, amplified by lawmakers and activists, didn't just try to cut budgets; it decimated morale and cratered interest in policing as a career. Officers faced vilification, unfair scrutiny and new laws that made their jobs harder. Illinois' SAFE-T Act imposed confusing use-of-force standards, expanded expensive body-camera mandates and eliminated cash bail — changes that, however well-intentioned, piled additional burdens on short-staffed departments. Take the elimination of cash bail: It should have reduced workload but somehow resulted in additional, cumbersome and duplicative paperwork for minor offenses. The forms themselves were obviously designed by someone who works at a desk — not someone who would have to fill them out in a squad car. In Illinois, officers have retired in droves, and recruitment dried up as young people saw policing as a thankless, high-risk career with little public support. In October, the Sun-Times reported 1 out of every 6 newly hired Chicago police officers have left since 2016. Nationally, the story is the same. A 2023 Police Executive Research Forum report found that resignations spiked 47% in 2022 compared with 2019, leaving total staffing down 5%. The political climate has made it nearly impossible to recruit and retain officers. Departments are receiving a fraction of the interest they once did, and departments such as Winnetka's are left chronically short. For perspective, a new police officer in Winnetka makes $85,397 — and they still cannot hire adequately. Many Illinois departments have resorted to poaching officers just to keep up. Enter private security. P4 is a highly reputable and respected security firm. Its staff will probably do well for the residents of Winnetka. Private security has long been used in Chicagoland to enhance public safety at large-scale events, high-profile gatherings and more. But if we continue down this road, doing nothing to address the underlying police recruitment and retention crisis, eventually there won't be enough police for private firms to 'observe and report' to. This is a Band-Aid — not a long-term solution. There are bills in the Illinois legislature right now that are going to make this situation worse. One proposal, House Bill 3458, would allow people charged with aggravated battery to a police officer to claim they were having a mental health episode. The legislature is also considering a bill to make it easier to decertify police officers. These types of bills are killing morale in law enforcement. Law enforcement advocates understand changes will be made, but we need smart, calculated reform. The current situation is out of balance. In representing police officers throughout the state, I hear almost daily from young, qualified officers who want to quit the profession because of these types of measures and the feeling of being abandoned by legislators. Illinois needs a course correction. Police advocates have long called for competitive salaries, high-quality training, mental health resources for officers and the public, and legislative backing that balances accountability with due process for officers. Instead, we've gotten ill-considered and rushed reform. Most Illinois communities don't have the resources to hire private security. If we don't rebuild our police morale, there won't be enough private security to fill in the gaps. Alexander Dunn is an attorney, retired police officer and president of the Illinois Council of Police (ICOPs) labor union. ICOPs represents police officers and public employees throughout Illinois. He also is a member of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police's legislative and political action committees.
