Police Departments Say Budget Cuts Are the Reason They’ve Been Unable to Hire New Officers
Virginia | May 9, 2021
Multiple police departments told the Daily Caller News Foundation that recruiting officers is not an issue, but budget constraints have limited their ability to increase manpower.
Almost a year after George Floyd died during an arrest where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes resulting in nationwide civil unrest and the defund the police movement, most police departments say they still have a sufficient number of candidates but lack the funding to recruit them.
“The Minneapolis Police Department, like every department, has seen a drop in application numbers over the last several years,” Minneapolis Police Department Spokesperson John Elder told the DCNF. “Whereas we have seen a reduction in applications, we still have ample qualified candidates who wish to be Minneapolis Police Officers and Cadets [and the department’s] recruitment efforts are ongoing.”
The Minneapolis Police Academy managed to get every recruit to graduation despite civil unrest and demands to cut their department’s funding in June 2020, the DCNF reported. Elder told the DCNF at the time that there were fewer applications to become an officer, but those who were recruited all completed their training.
The San Francisco Police Department has seen a decrease in the number of applicants in the last five years, spokesperson Michael Andraychak told the DCNF. The department received around 4,800 applications from 2015 to 2016 and roughly 2,600 from 2019 to 2020, down approximately 375 from the previous year..
(Excerpts from The Virginia Star)