MAY 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 5

AROUND THE COUNTRY COPS

AROUND THE COUNTRY COPS QUIT Between 2019-2021, 12,353 police employees along with 1,361 state troopers left law enforcement. By Leonard Sipes Over 12,000 local police officers and employees have left their jobs per the Bureau of Labor Statistics along with almost 1400 state police employees. Mainstream media says it everyday; There aren’t enough cops to respond to all the 911 calls, take all reports, or patrol high crime areas. In Seattle, sexual assault investigations are plummeting. There is also research documenting the reluctance of police officers to engage in proactive policing. Data states that (72%) of officers are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons. But given the actions of Portland to defund the police and officers every move critiqued, who can blame them for being less proactive. The combination of a loss of police officers and a lack of proactivity (as demanded by activists, politicians, and the media as a result of use of force incidents) has led to massive increases in violence, record numbers of fear, a vast increase in security and firearm purchases, and people-businesses leaving cities. The increase is not due to COVID; per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, violence (and serious violence) started increasing 28 percent in 2015. It’s the lower income communities being the hardest hit along with the cities having protests. It’s devastating to the economic well-being of high and moderate crime areas. People and businesses are leaving cities. Local economies are being destroyed. To this point, we have data from the Police Executive Research Forum documenting the decrease in police officers. Agencies participating in a PERF survey reported that there has been a 63% decrease in applications to become a police officer. Data below from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that we have lost 12,353 “local” police employees between September 2019 and September 2021. Looking at the chart, some explanation is necessary. The “Annual” data at the end of the chart is a two-year average and can’t be used for comparison purposes. The numbers cited by BLS are police “employees.” There are civilian members of law enforcement agencies included. Using the most recent years (September to September), we lost 9,650 in 2018-2021, 12,353 in 2019-2021, and 5,042 in 2020-2021. However, per BLS, the most accurate way to report the numbers is by using September (the latest available data) and comparing one point in time to another, which brings us to our 12,353 figures. However, we need to understand that the BLS data is a snapshot in time and doesn’t consider officers-employees in the pipeline retiring, transferring and resigning which may have a greater impact on cities than the data presented above. STATE AND LOCAL POLICE EMPLOYEES Per separate BLS charts, there was a loss of 1,361 state police employees from 2019-2021. The federal government gained police employees. CONCLUSIONS As stated in the opening, media reports are stating that cities are losing a lot of police officers. I suspect that if BLS could segment data from just large cities, the losses would be far greater. Cops feel that the American public no longer supports them. Morale is low. Former NYC Chief William Bratton says political leadership has had the biggest impact on the rise in crime. “[Police officers] are not effective because they are not being supported by political leadership … Political leadership has disrupted the criminal justice system that reduced crime for 25 years straight.” The timeline for losses in personnel and rising violence correspond with the protests. Police shootings have been the lead story of endless media outlets and it’s accelerated since the August 9, 2014, shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the Freddie Gray incident in Baltimore in 2015. From the erroneous “hands updon’t shoot” narrative in Ferguson to the acquitted six police officers in Baltimore (there was no evidence that the officers did anything wrong per a judge) there are endless stereotypes surrounding explosive police events. When looking at hundreds of evaluations of police performance, it’s clear that cops, especially officers engaged in proactive policing, have an impact on violence and overall crime. There is no meta-analysis (reviews of multiple evaluations) of any other modalities currently showing an equal impact. For the moment, proactive policing is our only evidence-based data with multiple, methodologically correct evaluations. Multiple data sources, regardless of demographics, show widespread support-confidence-trust and a desire to have cops in their communities with percentage differences based on age, race, and political affiliation. Yes, some law enforcement officers have committed illegal acts and the justice system needs to own these incidents. But regardless of who they are, America supports cops. Cities seem to be hemorrhaging cops. It’s a logical conclusion to infer that if this continues, so will the rapid increase in violence and fear. Reprinted from Law Enforcement Today. 26 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 27