Innovations in Recruitment, Retention, and Workforce Diversity
Providing resources and support for police agencies to enhance recruitment, retention, and workforce diversity efforts
Recruiting and staffing shortfalls continue to impact law enforcement agencies across the United States. New challenges in the 21st century, including barriers in community trust, negative media attention, military call-ups, a greater number of retirements and increased competition from other agencies, are a few of the compounding factors that have led to an acute shortage in the profession. While many agencies are struggling, others are moving forward with innovative approaches.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is committed to supporting the policing profession on issues of recruitment and retention. These issues are critical to the advancement of community policing and the policing profession in general. Through the development of tools and resources and dedicated training and technical assistance, the IACP will serve as a valuable resource for law enforcement agencies, their administrators, and others committed to advancing the policing profession and safer communities worldwide.
Upcoming Events
Stay tuned for more upcoming events.
IACP Resources
Best Practices Guide on Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover in Law Enforcement provides an overview of the issues that impact an agency's ability to recruit enough qualified persons who are a "good fit" within a police agency and the processes to successfully attract these individuals.
Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC) provides no-cost, customized training and technical assistance to state, local, tribal, territorial, and campus police agencies throughout the United States on recruitment and retention. These services may include resource referral, web-based training, in-person training, virtual mentoring, meeting facilitation, and on-site consulting.
CRI-TAC Spotlight: Recruitment and Retention for Workforce Diversity This guidebook gives law enforcement information about existing resources for promoting workforce diversity through various staffing mechanisms.
CRI-TAC Spotlight: Report Out from the Rhode Island Regional Roundtable on Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention This report shares promising practices on recruitment and retention from agencies in Rhode Island.
Discover Policing is an award-winning site unlike any other, providing comprehensive information on law enforcement careers, offering a full-service career center, sharing information on how to increase skills and abilities in community policing, providing virtual ride-alongs, online self-assessments, and more.
Engaging Families for Recruitment and Retention highlights the importance of the dedication and support that law enforcement officers receive throughout their careers from their families.
Family Support: How It Can Impact Recruiting, Retention, and Resilience discusses how running a family support program can have minimal cost and high impact on police agencies.
Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit focuses on the changing recruitment needs of police departments’; the obstacles that stand between the departments and recruitment goals; strategies that some jurisdictions are using to overcome obstacles; recruiting for diversity; agency collaboration; and community partnerships.
Recruitment & Personnel Topic Page highlights IACP's resources and model policies about targeting, recruiting, hiring, and maintaining adept sworn law enforcement officers.
The State of Recruitment: A Continuing Crisis for Law Enforcement provides a summary of the 2024 IACP survey on recruitment and retention. This resource highlights results from over 1,100 U.S. agencies and reports on the challenges agencies are experiencing, success stories, and customized solutions from these agencies.
The State of Recruitment: A Crisis for Law Enforcement provides a breakdown of the 2019 IACP survey on recruitment. This resource provides information on what is driving the recruitment crisis, the impact it has on the police profession, and recent innovations in recruitment.
For COPS Hiring Program Grantees
Community Collective: Innovations in Recruitment and Retention is a secure, online community exclusively for COPS Hiring Program grantees. The Community Collective provides an opportunity for police agencies to connect with each other and exchange ideas and information. Membership is open to COPS Hiring Program grantees.
External Resources
This content is designed for reference purposes only. The IACP does not necessarily endorse, certify, recommend, or promote any particular resource(s) within.
COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is a competitive award program designed to provide funding directly to law enforcement agencies to hire or rehire additional career law enforcement officers to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.
Recruiting and Retaining Officers in Small and Rural Agencies provides police with information on the qualities that make a good officer, why people leave a department, challenges to recruiting and retaining officers, and strategies that departments use to attract and keep officers.
Recruiting & Retaining Women: A Self-Assessment Guide for Law Enforcement assists agencies seeking to recruit and retain more women in sworn police positions.
Recruitment, Hiring & Retention website hosted by the COPS Office includes numerous publications, articles, podcasts, and other resources on recruitment and retention.
Youth Law Enforcement Experience Programs as a Potential Recruitment Pipeline provides a roadmap for police, public safety officials, educators, and program staff who are considering developing a new youth law enforcement experience program or who currently have such a program and would like additional information to help improve or expand it.
Need Training or Technical Assistance?
The IACP is dedicated to providing training and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies by offering promising practices and subject matter expertise on recruitment, retention, and workforce diversity. For more information, click the Submit a TA Request button below, and let us know how we can assist you.
For more information, contact [email protected].
This project is supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number 15JCOPS-23-GK-02050-PPSE awarded to the IACP by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) or contributor(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific individuals, agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s), contributor(s), or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues. The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the date of publication. Given that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the COPS Office can vouch for their current validity.
