The Rotten Barrel
Why do police recruitment issues in the U.S. help ‘bad apples’ prevail?
This article was first published in the spring of 2020.
This isn’t my hot-take on events in Minneapolis this Spring, police brutality or structural / systemic racism in the United States. Better writers than me will address those things at the right time.
My focus is on a related issue that exists across the US, which has a central role in both recent and previous tragedies.
I’m asking whether long-standing issues around police recruitment, officer retention and discipline in the US are the reason that ‘bad-apple’ officers are protected by police departments, and even relied upon.
The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted that reforms to HR practices have not had the effect that police chiefs in Minneapolis had hoped for. Things in Minneapolis were horrendous, and despite ‘efforts’ to make policing more open and representative, they’re now even worse.
However, the story in Minneapolis includes a fundamental staffing and H.R. problem which is experienced by police departments all over the US. The result of which is a desperation to retain officers regardless of their conduct, and then recruiting more of the same.
The general picture of retention and recruitment.
The recruitment and retention of police officers in the United States has been a serious problem for decades. Retirements have stripped police departments of experienced officers, while falling application rates and the exit of officers to other jobs prevent them from ever fully replenishing.
During the 2008–9 financial crisis, officer attrition (loss) jumped by two-thirds in some police departments, with officers feeling that after departmental cuts, their pay and benefits no longer made-up for the dangers or difficulties of the job.
According to The Economist, applications to some police departments then dropped by over 30% between 2010 and 2015, sometimes resulting in the cancellation of whole academy classes and intakes. Between 2013 to 2016 police departments in the US lost more than 23,000 officers between them (according to the Marshall Project).
Early exit is still an issue for police departments, with large numbers of officers moving on to other roles with less than five years of service.
In Sept 2019, ABC News pointed out that application rates had dropped even further, and that this ‘triple threat’ of reduced application rates, early exits and retirement is constantly hanging over police chiefs, Mayors and City Managers.
Measures taken by police departments.
Modern workforce analysis and planning methods can help cope with these reduced officer numbers, and some police departments are better at planning and officer deployment than others. Unfortunately, the only H.R. strategy some police departments have (or are willing to use) is to keep a tight hold of existing officers and try to attract more to the job.
In some departments, this has involved ‘quirky’ attempts to recruit. One example may be seen in Fort Worth’s (bizarre) 2017 recruitment videos using Star Wars characters to generate interest in joining their ‘force’ as a police officer. Elsewhere, a tactic of poaching officers from other cities has been used, passing the numbers problem on to another police chief.
Another approach has been the relaxation of certain qualifications and standards for potential recruits, with respect to a their education levels, drug use and criminal record…
Calls for reform aren’t new of course, but where’s the change?
The need for modern police departments to have a representative, open and effective recruitment strategy has already been pointed out by senior officers. But when you look at the suggested improvements they aren’t that progressive. Ray Arcuri (Chief of Police, Rittman, Ohio) points out in Police Chief Magazine that an improved strategy might consider the following (my reaction in italics):
Countering negative images of police officers in the media and providing good role models (obvious);
Understanding ‘target candidates’ by identifying and assessing their social media and news preferences (creepy);
Having a ‘multifaceted advertising plan’ and marketing style approach (desperate);
Recruiting people who have already passed a similar screening process, such as military personnel or officers already serving elsewhere (lazy);
Encouraging existing officers — including those permanently stationed within local schools — to identify likely future applicants and engage with young people early. This includes school children (tragic and creepy);
Rewarding existing officers who attract applicants with incentive pay or other benefits (open to manipulation).
Encouraging the development of a fresh strategy is a good thing, and on the face of it some of these points may seem like reasonable recruitment practices. However the the majority will do nothing but preserve the current (clearly imperfect) system.
Autonomy with impunity.
Job satisfaction is stated by police departments (and many other organizations) to be the number-one factor in staff retention, with valued employees exiting the organization when they’re not happy. For officers in the US, one of the key factors that constitutes ‘happy’ is an officer’s sense of autonomy and their freedom to make choices. If this is frustrated, they look for another job.
According to the ABC News article, another key factor is freedom from scrutiny or criticism, with many police chiefs feeling that it’s difficult to attract people into a role where every action and decision might be scrutinized and publicly commented upon.
It should be immediately worrying that armed public servants in a position of authority would demand both autonomy and impunity, and even more alarming that they actually receive it.
A couple of examples from Minneapolis itself can illustrate why.
Ten years ago, the current Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, Medaria Arradondo (and others) sued the City over systemic racial discrimination and a hostile work environment.
They alleged that African-American officers were significantly less likely to be promoted than white officers and disproportionately disciplined or even demoted. They also cited an incident in 1992 where every African-American officer was threatened in a letter sent via departmental mail that was signed “KKK.”
The City settled out of court.
Derek Chauvin — the (now former) Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd — already had on his official record 18 complaints, with two disciplinary actions and written departmental reprimands. In all, 2600 complaints had been filed against officers in Minneapolis since 2012, yet only 12 resulted in any disciplinary action.
This doesn’t include the 12 year jail sentence given to another Minneapolis officer for shooting to death an unarmed woman while responding to the 9–1–1 call she herself had made.
The influence of police unions.
I’ll firstly say here that I have been a member of a trade union for most of my adult life. I wholeheartedly believe in the principles of genuine and progressive trade unionism and worker’s representation, to the extent that even when employed as a manager in the UK I retained my membership of a traditionally ‘blue collar’ union.
That shouldn’t (and doesn’t) mean that I blindly condone any and all practices by other unions.
I fully expect union representation to be progressive, and to demonstrate a genuine and fundamental commitment to diversity and equity, which is more important that fraternity and protection.
US police departments stick rigidly to their negotiated agreements with police officer unions when working through disciplinary processes, which is common to most organizations where there is a union presence. However, as yesterday’s Journal article points out that, law enforcement experts and community leaders feel that over time, police officers have become increasingly insulated from discipline and face no meaningful repercussions for their conduct. It goes on to say that:
‘Unions like the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis fight to shield their members from punishment, both through contract negotiations and disciplinary hearings, saying that neither top police officials nor the public understands how dangerous their jobs are.’
This is taken to an alarming level when senior Police Federation representatives face little or no sanction for expressing personal views that do not represent their public sector employer.
This is the case with Lt Robert Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Officers’ Federation, who (according to the Journal) has described prominent Muslim figures and groups such as Black Lives Matter as terrorists, has allegedly worn ‘white-power’ badges while off-duty, and continued to furiously support hard-force ‘warrior style’ training for officers, while the department and city rejected it.
As I write. Lt Kroll’s resignation is being called for, after his comments on the killing of George Floyd.
Recruiting for cultural fit.
Bad apples are usually kept out of the barrel. But what happens when those police departments who are desperate to retain such staff, are also recruiting more of the same. Note that’s a when, not an if.
Human Resource Magazine (January 2018) points out that when it comes to interviewing, most organizations now look to recruit people based on their ‘cultural fit’. That is, they prioritize candidates based on their personality, likability, and on having a similar outlook to the organization (ie, its management).
These organizations have been persuaded that hiring people who fit-in with everyone and everything else that’s already in place, boosts retention, reduces variability and change and ensures compliance with organizational norms — whether good or bad.
Many HR professionals have grown to understand that this is not good practice, at all.
At best, the idea of anyone having a ‘cultural fit’ with an employer is a myth, as the stated culture of an organization is often explicitly aspirational, and in practice there’s usually a range of sub-cultures across the organization anyway.
At worst, cultural fit is a lazy recruiter’s tool to weed out personal and professional competition, reinforce prejudice, and establish a self-perpetuating hive of subordinates.
The Harvard Business Review also chimes-in on the dangers of using cultural fit, suggesting that a good fit could actually represent a negative attribute:
‘For example, does the fact that an applicant belonged to a fraternity reflect experience working with others, or elitism, or bad attitudes toward women?’
Automation of pre-interview stages using software solutions also needs to be done very carefully, and these systems can (if not calibrated well) give similarly shaky results to those of the lazy, biased interviewer.
For example, if A.I. recruitment algorithms only look for the characteristics of the organization’s current leaders in potential new hires, it’s probable that white and male will be the standard that all applicants will be judged against, side-lining any candidate who happens to be neither.
Both articles (and many others) note that the practice is imprecise, flawed, open to abuse and rife with the potential to reproduce the worst of the organization and not the best.
In the context of this story, desperately recruiting officers for cultural fit is a very real problem with potentially lethal consequences.
Improve, and save lives.
The situation currently playing out in cities across the US has deep and ancient roots that this piece could only touch upon. Speaking about police department recruitment might seem like a frivolous distraction this week, but it’s one of the things we all need to understand if any lasting change is to be achieved.
One possible step may be to eventually reconfigure and standardize police recruitment methods in the US, with reference to national and international best practice and policing research. Could such reforms at least reduce the early exit rate, increase demographic diversity and so broaden the cultural base, and give police unions something better to preserve?
This should be formally considered, soon, not to improve the optics and profile of policing (because that doesn’t mean anything), but to actually demonstrate an intent to be part of meaningful and fundamental change, to commit to policing with consent and representation, and to stop the rot.