Is working in law enforcement for you? Tacoma police are hiring

Tacoma police are getting creative in how they recruit officers.

With the highest number of vacancies in years and the lowest number of applicants, the department launched an initiative to study hiring data.

In the last few months, they’ve changed their message to bring people on board, started handing out recruiting business cards, streamlined their website and distributed free study guides.

Ben Thurgood, who leads the city’s Continuous Improvement Initiative, said focusing the message on serving a community rather than the excitement of police work has made the biggest difference.

“It’s less effective to talk about the career of a police officer and it’s more effective to talk about the impact you can have on your community,” Thurgood said.

The 355-member Police Department currently has 20 vacancies.

It hired 27 people in the last year, but lost another 27 due to attrition, retirements, medical leave and terminations.

An average of 18.5 employees have left the department every year over the last decade, data shows.

The lowest was in 2011 when just nine people left. The highest was in 2017 with 27.

“It’s a perfect storm of conditions,” Assistant Chief Ed Wade said.

He pointed to a low unemployment rate, scrutiny of law enforcement, a shift in what the younger generation wants in a career and the loss of several seasoned officers at the same time.

There was a big hiring push in the late 1980s as the nation cracked down on gangs and drugs, Wade said, and many of those officers have now reached retirement age.

That has left police grappling with how to bring in new officers.

“We’re trying to recruit people from a generation that really values that work-life balance,” Wade said. “Law enforcement is a 24/7 occupation but the idea of working weekends, holidays and overtime doesn’t appeal to everybody.”

The initiative found more than 1,500 people applied to the Tacoma Police Department during 2016-2017, but most of them didn’t return the required personal history questionnaires.

Out of the 1,500 who turned in an application, about 1,100 failed to schedule an exam or show up for the test.

Officials are funneling some money into the testing process, hoping to make it quicker and easier.

There are now four background investigators rather than two in charge of all the hiring, and two additional detectives have been temporarily assigned to catch up on the backlog.

Instead of the usual two tests, there will be four this year.

“People want officers in the city, they want the streets staffed, they want officers responding to their calls,” Wade said. “We need to make sure we have the officers to provide those basic functions.”

That’s why the department worked with the city on a hiring initiative and created the recruiting business cards.

Officers are asked to hand the cards out when they come across people in the community who might be suited to the uniform.

There are 2,000 business cards in the first batch and they’ve been doled out to baristas, clerks and others whom police come in contact with.

“We’re looking at high-quality people with good people skills who are friendly and want to help,” Wade said. “The quality people are under our noses, we just have to have a way to reach them.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2018 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Is working in law enforcement for you? Tacoma police are hiring."