The ongoing shortage of police officers in the city of Phoenix and efforts to address that problem were the main topics of discussion at Wednesday, Sept. 14’s City Council meeting of the Public Safety and Justice subcommittee.
Phoenix Police Assistant Chief Brain Chapman outlined the efforts to recruit more police officers, especially through schools in Maricopa County. Chapman believes that reaching out to youths in the community will encourage kids to want to become a police officer.
“We have done a very good job of reaching out to high schools in the community,” Chapman said when explaining the importance of recruiting younger generations. The department sends officers to schools in the Phoenix area to give speeches about the police academy and how to apply for it.
The police department is 522 police officers below what they are budgeted for.
“City of Phoenix is allocated from the City Council budgeting 3,125 Officers. As of September 7th we have 2,603 sworn officers,” a statement from the police department revealed.
However, the police department is hoping to get younger people involved and interested in the police academy by “trying to build a pipeline of people from the ages of 14 to 21,” Chapman said.
“We’ve had an officer who was 59 ½ years old who went through and graduated from the academy,” Chapman said.
Chapman said the department is also trying to make the recruitment process more manageable for its applicants. A change in the testing system is being considered to help applicants who are not confident in taking written tests.
“An oral board test can expand opportunities for people who may not do well with the testing process we have,” Chapman said.
Councilwoman Ann O’Brien approved of the academy’s efforts to implement an oral board test.
“We can still have a police officer that is successful who is not good at written tests,” O’Brien said.
The department is doing everything they can to make the hiring process available for all applicants.
The hiring process can be done “completely remotely,” Chapman said, explaining how even the fitness test can be recorded and uploaded to Youtube. Only one trip to the office is required to finalize the process.
Giving people the opportunity to do the police hiring process remotely could potentially help increase the number of applicants and newly hired police officers according to him.
Chapman said a key goal was to implement the 30 by 30 initiative, “a coalition of police leaders, researchers, and professional organizations who have joined together to advance the representation and experiences of women in all ranks of policing” according to the initiative plans website.
“Our goal is for 30 percent of officers to be women by 2023,” Chapman said.
Another member of the Council, Yassmin Ansari, spoke about the need for increased diversity and stated that she supports the initiative but wants the force to do more to recruit female officers, who currently make up 14 percent of the Phoenix police.
The police department plans to present at job fairs, churches and advisory boards to help encourage many people from different backgrounds to apply to the police academy.
Contact the reporter at apscott@asu.edu.
