PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police departments across the United States are reporting an increase in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to a historic exodus of officers, a survey shows.
More sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any one of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall resigned or retired, according to the 214 law enforcement agencies that responded to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF.
Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers spurred nationwide protests against police brutality and heightened scrutiny of law enforcement.
As more and more officers left, many of the departments had to redeploy stretched resources by shifting officers away from investigative work or quality of life issues such as abandoned vehicles or noise violations to handle increases in crime and, in some cases, the shortages meant slower response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, police officials say.
“I just think that the past four years have been particularly challenging for American policing," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, a nonprofit policing think tank based in Washington, D.C. "And our survey shows we’re finally starting to turn a corner.”
Individual departments are turning that corner at different rates, however, according to Wexler, who noted many are still struggling to attract and keep officers.
As a whole, the profession “isn't out of the woods yet,” he said.
The Associated Press left phone and email messages with several unions and police departments to ask about increased hiring.
The survey shows that while small and medium departments had more sworn officers than they did in January 2020, large departments are still more than 5% below their staffing levels from that time, even with a year-over-year increase from 2022 to 2023.
The survey also showed smaller departments with fewer than 50 officers are still struggling with a higher rate of resignations and retirements.
The survey asked only for numbers, Wexler said, so it's hard to say whether those officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession altogether. He also said smaller departments, which account for 80% of agencies nationwide, were underrepresented in the responses PERF received.
Many larger departments have increased officer pay or started offering incentives such as signing bonuses for experienced officers who are willing to transfer, something smaller departments can't really compete with. At least a dozen smaller departments have disbanded, leaving the municipalities they once served to rely on state or county help for policing.
But even some of the highest-paying large departments are still struggling to get new hires in the door.
“I don’t think it’s all about money. I think it’s about the way people perceive their job and feel they are going to be supported,” Wexler said. “You have West Coast departments that are paying six figures, but still seeing major challenges in hiring.”
In addition to pay and bonuses, many agencies are reexamining their application requirements and hiring processes.
Wexler believes some of those changes make sense, including allowing visible tattoos, reweighing the importance of past financial issues and processing applicants' background checks faster. But he cautioned that PERF does not support lowering standards for training or for applicants.
Maria “Maki” Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says departments have been too focused on officer numbers. She worries some are lowering education requirements and other standards to bolster numbers instead of trying to find the best people to police their communities.
“Policing is a real profession that requires more skills and more education than people can understand," she said. "It’s not about tattoos or running a mile in 15 minutes. It’s really more about emotional intelligence, maturity and making those split-second decisions that don’t use deadly force.”
Haberfeld also cautioned that any staffing gains made through incentives could easily be erased, especially as officers, including some in riot gear, have been seen breaking up protests against the Israel-Hamas war at universities across the country.
“In policing, it takes decades to move forward and a split second for the public attitude to deteriorate,” she said.
PERF's survey showed a more than a 20% drop in resignations overall, from a high of almost 6,500 in 2022 to fewer than 5,100 in 2023. They are still up over early pandemic levels in 2020, however, when a few more than 4,000 officers resigned across all responding departments.
As with the hiring increases, the rate of decrease in retirements tended to depend on the size of the departments. There were fewer retirements in 2023 than in 2019 at large departments, slightly more retirements at medium departments and elevated retirements at small departments. The survey found a steep drop in resignations at large agencies with 250 or more officers and medium-size agencies with between 50 and 249 officers.
In addition to pay and benefit increases, the improved retention can be partly attributed to a shift in how some public officials view their public safety departments, Wexler says.
“We went from having public discourse about defunding the police just a few years ago to public officials waking up to the fact their workforce is leaving,” he said. “I don't think there’s any question that there has been a sea change among political leaders.”
FILE - Shown is a Philadelphia police car with flashing lights in Philadelphia, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. Police departments reported a year-over-year increase in sworn officers in 2023 for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began and since the 2020 police killing of George Floyd spurred nationwide protests and increased scrutiny of police, according to a survey released by the Police Executive Research Forum. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - Police tape cordons off the scene of a crime in Levittown, Pa., Saturday, March 16, 2024. Police departments reported a year-over-year increase in sworn officers in 2023 for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began and since the 2020 police killing of George Floyd spurred nationwide protests and increased scrutiny of police, according to a survey released by the Police Executive Research Forum. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
PANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border.
President-elect José Raúl Mulino says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north.
Whether Mulino is able to reduce migration through a sparsely populated region with little government presence remains to be seen, experts say.
“Panama and our Darien are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said after his victory with 34% of the vote in Sunday’s election was formalized Thursday evening. He will take over as president on July 1.
As he had suggested during his campaign, the 64-year-old lawyer and former security minister said he would try to end “the Darien odyssey that does not have a reason to exist.”
The migrant route through the narrow isthmus grew exponentially in popularity in recent years with the help of organized crime in Colombia, making it an affordable, if dangerous, land route for hundreds of thousands.
It grew as countries like Mexico, under pressure from the U.S. government, imposed visa restrictions on various nationalities including Venezuelans and just this week Peruvians in an attempt to stop migrants flying into the country just to continue on to the U.S. border.
But masses of people took the challenge and set out on foot through the jungle-clad Colombian-Panamanian border. A crossing that initially could take a week or more eventually was whittled down to two or three days as the path became more established and entrepreneurial locals established a range of support services.
It remains a risky route, however. Reports of sexual assaults have continued to rise, some migrants are killed by bandits in robberies and others drown trying to cross rushing rivers.
Even so, some 147,000 migrants have already entered Panama through Darien this year.
Previous attempts to close routes around the world have simply shifted traffic to riskier paths.
“People migrate for many reasons and frequently don't have safe, orderly and legal ways to do it,” said Giuseppe Loprete, chief of mission in Panama for the U.N.'s International Organization for Immigration. “When the legal routes are not accessible, migrants run the risk of turning to criminal networks, traffickers and dangerous routes, tricked by disinformation.”
Loprete said the U.N. agency's representatives in Panama would meet with Mulino's team once its member are named to learn the specifics of the president's plans.
If Mulino could be even partially effective, it could produce a notable, but likely temporary, impact. As with the visa restrictions that unintentionally steered migrants to the overland route through Panama, if the factors pushing migrants to leave their countries remain they will find other routes. One could be the dangerous sea routes from Colombia to Panama.
In a local radio interview Thursday, Mulino said the idea of shutting down the migration flow is more philosophical than a physical obstacle.
“Because when we start to deport people here in an immediate deportation plan the interest for sneaking through Panama will decrease,” he said. By the time the fourth plane loaded with migrants takes off, “I assure you they are going to say that going through Panama is not attractive because they are deporting you.”
Julio Alonso, a Panamanian security expert, said what Mulino could realistically achieve is unknown.
“This would be a radical change to Panamanian policy in terms of migration to avoid more deaths and organized crime using the route,” he said. Among the challenges will be how it would work operationally along such an open and uncontrolled border.
“In Panama, there is no kind of suppression with this situation, just free passage, humanitarian aid that didn't manage to reduce the number of assaults, rapes, homicides and deaths along the Darien route,” Alonso said. Mulino's proposal is “a dissuasive measure, yes, (but) whether it can be completely executed we will see.”
It's also unlikely that much could be accomplished without a lot of cooperation and coordination with Colombia and other countries, he said.
Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that “without considering the risk of returning migrants to dangerous situations, in mathematical terms I don't know how they hope to massively deport" migrants.
"A daily plane, which would be extremely expensive, would only repatriate around 10% of the flow (about 1,000 to 1,200 per day). The United States only manages to do about 130 flights monthly in the entire world,” Isacson said.
FILE - A Panamanian flag flies on Ancon hill backdropped by the skyline of Panama City, days ahead of the presidential election, May 2, 2024. On May 5th, Panamanians elected José Raúl Mulino who ran on the promise to usher in another wave of economic prosperity and to stop migration through the Darien Gap, the jungle region overlapping Colombia and Panama that was traversed by half a million migrants last year. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Migrants who plan to start walking across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S. gather at the trailhead camp in Acandi, Colombia, May 9, 2023. President-elect José Raúl Mulino said Thursday, May 9, 2024, he will shut down the migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)
FILE - Achieving Goals presidential candidate Jose Raul Mulino celebrates his victory after his rivals conceded, in Panama City, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mulino ran on the promise to usher in another wave of economic prosperity, and stop migration through the Darien Gap, the jungle region overlapping Colombia and Panama that was traversed by half a million migrants last year. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Voters line up outside a polling station during a general election in Panama City, May 5, 2024. President-elect José Raúl Mulino ran on the promise to usher in another wave of economic prosperity, and stop migration through the Darien Gap, the jungle region overlapping Colombia and Panama that was traversed by half a million migrants last year. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Panamanian President-elect Jose Raul Mulino meets with the press in Panama City, May 7, 2024. Mulino said that he will shut down the migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year, whose victory with 34% of the vote in the May 5th election was formalized on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Migrants cross a river during their journey through the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama, hoping to reach the U.S., Oct. 15, 2022. President-elect José Raúl Mulino said Thursday, May 9, 2024, he will shut down the migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)
