12,353 Police Employees Left Law Enforcement Along With 1,361 State Police Per BLS

Highlights

Over 12,000 local police officers and employees have left their jobs per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Per separate BLS charts, there was an additional loss of 1,361 state police employees.

The impact of fewer and less proactive police officers on violence and fear could be considerable.

Author

Note

My thanks to the public affairs office at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for their guidance in creating this article

Article

There are daily media reports of cities not having enough police officers to respond to 911 calls or take all reports of crime 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, Pew.

The only effort that indicates reductions in crime are proactive police strategies via the US Department of Justice and the National Academies of Sciences. Proactivity means that officers will take their own initiative to approach someone when they have the legal right to question or search. Proactive policing embraces a variety of tactics.

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 poor and African American 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, all we have are media accounts and 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 applying to become a police officer.

Bureau Of Labor Statistics

The vast majority of media reports center on local police officers and members of sheriff’s departments.

Data below from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that we have lost 12,353 “local” police employees between September 2019 and September 2021.

Chart-Bureau Of Labor Statistics-Local Police Employees

Some Explanation

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 figure.

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.

I’m using preliminary data. There are dozens of reports and articles on crime (i.e., the FBI’s quarterly and six-month data) using preliminary figures.

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 up-don’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.

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