Police Recruit Many, Hire Few

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department did not have thousands of jobs available when it began its major recruitment drive six months ago. But it was looking for thousands of people to fill out applications.

That’s because police and sheriff’s officials have learned a hard reality over the years.

“Historically, the problem is not finding enough applicants, but enough qualified applicants,” said Russell Caylor, technical adviser to Police Product News, a national law enforcement magazine based in San Diego. “The public is generally unaware how difficult it is to become a cop.”

In Orange County, recruiters for the Sheriff’s Department say, about 100 applicants have to be found in order to come up with six who will eventually wear a badge. In Phoenix, Ariz., it’s five per 100. In Memphis, Tenn., city police recruiters say they need 800 applicants to fill 50 positions. At the San Bernardino County sheriff’s office, it takes 300 applicants to get 25 deputies.

The need to over-recruit confronts law enforcement agencies around the country, a Times’ survey of major police and sheriff’s agencies found. Difficulties include finding drug-free candidates in a society that has seen drug use become common, hiring enough female and minority candidates to satisfy affirmative action goals and, in some cases, satisfying courts that have placed personnel restrictions on local police agencies. All these elements come together to make life difficult for a law enforcement recruiter whose object is to find a few good men or women.

At the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, about 50 of each group of 100 applicants fail to pass the written test. Another five or so fail the physical examination. Another 15 fail the oral boards (where applicants are interviewed by a recruitment panel). Then up to 20 or so are weeded out through the psychological examination and the background check. That leaves about nine or 10 of the 100 who actually make it to 18-week training academy. And on the average, only six of those complete the course and begin duty as deputy sheriffs.

It’s something most law enforcement agencies are resigned to. In fact, Robert J. Guerrero, background recruit investigator for the Anaheim Police Department, doesn’t see it as a problem.

“We only want the cream of the crop,” Guerrero said. “We spend weeks doing background checks on people we end up rejecting. But it’s the only way to end up with the best.”

‘Tough to Become a Cop’

At the Los Angeles Police Department, recruitment director Jack Smith considers it healthy to have a wide field of applicants.

“It’s tough to become a cop. But if you don’t get tons of people to apply, you won’t know whether you’re letting some good people get away.”

Most agree that the application process is a deterrent that weeds out many of the weaker candidates.

For example, at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, an applicant must make 11 trips to the department before being accepted into the training academy: The application, the written examination, the physical agility test, the oral exam, background interview, psychological interview, psychological follow-up, a polygraph test, a medical test, a medical follow-up and a final selection interview.

“You have to really want to be a law enforcement officer to go through that,” said Greg Bottrell, the department recruitment officer.

What upsets many recruiters is the high number of applicants who have good qualities but whose past takes them out of the running.

The biggest threat to a potential recruit is drugs.

“Whenever I talk to high school groups, I emphasize how important it is not to experiment with drugs,” said the LAPD’s Smith. “Not just for all the obvious reasons . . . but because it eliminates any chance they will ever have of joining our Police Department.”

Most police agencies have guidelines which eliminate anyone who has used any drugs--including marijuana--within the past year, or used marijuana excessively in the past.

Agencies differ on drugs beyond marijuana. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, like most agencies, permits some past experimentation with amphetamines, and even cocaine or heroin. But even a single use of LSD or PCP, hallucinogenic drugs, eliminates a candidate.

Los Angeles Police Department rules are strict: No marijuana within one year, no hard drugs ever. One minor experiment with cocaine or heroin, you’re out, recruiter Smith says.

Few can get away with lying about their past drug use. Most agencies surveyed require a polygraph test, and most of the rest, such as the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, reserve the right to use it on a case-by-case basis.

“It’s quite a deterrent,” said Sgt. Bottrell, of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which requires the polygraph. “Because applicants know the machine is coming up, we get admissions we would never get otherwise.”

Some police agencies--Las Vegas and Houston, for example--refuse to disclose what their standards are on previous drug use, for fear an applicant will find a way to get around them.

“But you can figure out that we are pretty strict,” said Robert Burd, Las Vegas police personnel director. “The use of marijuana is still a felony in our state. We don’t hire very many who have ever committed a felony.”

As tough as the drug standards are, they have eased in the past 10 years. Any hint of marijuana use before the 1970s killed a candidate’s chances at most agencies.

“In the Vietnam War era, you just can’t set a hard and fast rule like that,” said Mark Boyd, personnel and training director for the Des Moines (Iowa) Police Department. “If you did, you would lose 90% of your applicants right there.”

Why should it matter what a 25-year-old applicant did when he was 18? Some police recruiters argue that the medical evidence is still not clear on the long-term effects of some of the hallucinogenic drugs. But most point to arguments given them by the psychologists who screen their applicants: Drug use shows poor judgment and lack of respect for the law.

Susan Saxe-Clifford, psychologist for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, agrees with the strict standard on drugs.

“First of all, it’s illegal; so right away you have someone who does not respect the law,” she said. “It also shows poor judgment. And often times drug use is simply a crutch, and we don’t need people who need emotional crutches like that.”

Rex Williamson, chief recruiter for the Phoenix Police Department, argues that previous drug use is not viewed as a negative factor as much as the lack of drugs is a favorable point for an applicant.

“Say you’ve got an applicant with a bachelor’s degree who was caught shoplifting when he was 16 and dabbled with marijuana in college,” Williamson said. “Then there’s the guy who’s just a high school graduate. He’s never been arrested, and he’s never once even tried marijuana. We’re going to take the high school graduate. He’s already shown that he has a history of good judgment. And that’s what we’re looking for.”

While some departments have slightly eased their standards on drugs, other criteria still stand, recruiters say: Police agencies still are looking for good work habits, maturity and solid citizens.

Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates described the type of applicant he is seeking in some of his out-of-state recruitment efforts.

“We want the guy who is living on the farm and holding down another job full time, but he still wants to move to Orange County and work for us because he’s looking for a better life for himself and his family,” Gates said.

Rex Williamson, chief recruiter for the Phoenix Police Department, says the best qualities don’t show up on a resume.

“We want honesty and integrity,” Williamson said. “That’s something we can’t teach them in the training academy.”

Donald R. Enriquez, personnel director for the Seattle Police Department, sizes up the near-perfect candidate: “We want the All-American boy or girl, but with one added quality--street knowledge. We need people who can size up situations and know what’s going on.”

Most agree that screening applicants is critical to keep the wrong people out of uniform.

Bottrell of San Bernardino says police agencies have to worry about officers who too often could expose them to civil liability.

“You don’t want someone overly aggressive. When someone blows up on the job, there’s your brutality cases and your false arrest complaints,” Bottrell said. “On the other hand, if someone is so introverted he or she is not going to be assertive enough to handle the job, you’ve got another problem.”

Different agencies also need different personalities, Enriquez argues. For example, he believes that Seattle, which has a high ethnic mix, needs officers who aren’t too aggressive because they are so often exposed to situations which require understanding and a cool temperament. But nearby Tacoma, he said, needs more aggressive officers because it has three military installations in its area, where strong reactions are sometimes needed.

But each agency has its own unique problems in recruiting the right people.

In San Francisco, for example, city police recruiters say they are frustrated because a federal court order requires that they limit their recruiting to just the city and county. In Minneapolis, Minn., recruiters find it almost impossible to fill recruit classes because the starting salary is so drastically low--$735 biweekly, compared to $900 biweekly in St. Paul just across the Mississippi River.

Perhaps no situation was tougher than that faced by recruiters in Indianapolis, Ind., where, in the mid-1970s, a federal court order forced the department to improve its minority hiring. The department recently had 40 openings and 1,200 applicants. Yet it had to let seats in the recruit class go empty because it could only find 25 applicants who met its qualifications. In an effort to attract minorities and women, Indianapolis named a black women to the post of full-time recruiter.

“The black community does not trust the police based on a few incidents,” said Rhonda Reynolds, the recruiter. “I’m trying to tell them it’s a good career opportunity, if they’ll just give it a chance.”

The Los Angeles Police Department’s minority hiring problem is not with blacks, but with Asians. It does not have enough Asian officers to reflect the size of the city’s Asian population, which is its goal.

“There is a mistrust of the system in the Asian community, which we’ve got to overcome,” Smith said. “We’ve met our goal on hiring blacks and women. But we badly need more Asian officers.”

Orange County recruiters say that despite the success of a major 1986 recruiting drive, a sour note remained: Few women were recruited.

Women make up just 10% of the recruits hired in the past year. Capt. Andy Romero, the department’s personnel and training director, said he had hoped for at least double that amount.

It wasn’t that women were not able to survive all the tests. In fact, Romero said, women generally ranked higher than men in the testing. The problem was getting a high number of women applicants.

To deal with the problem, women recruiters were used, and female deputies were used in advertising.

“We think what we need to do now is to publicly show that we are emphasizing the hiring of women, which we didn’t really do before,” Romero said.

One estimate put the number of women currently among the sheriff’s sworn personnel at 15%. That’s also about the same percentage of minorities among sworn personnel. While Romero said the Sheriff’s Department would like to see that number improve too, hiring more women is the present priority.

Gates expressed concern, however, that the drive to recruit women may not be a success.

“I think we may have to finally recognize that, for whatever reason, law enforcement is simply not a field that women are going to seek out in great numbers,” Gates said.