LAPD Exodus Is Outpacing Recruitment

To understand Los Angeles’ difficulty staffing its police force, consider what happened in May:

Three LAPD officers with more than 20 years of service each retired that month, typical for a department now losing many who signed on during a post-Vietnam War hiring boom.

But 19 other cops, with an average of five years on the force, also quit. Most weren’t fed up with policing; they just wanted to work elsewhere. Sixteen took jobs with other law enforcement agencies, almost all of them local, according to confidential personnel files.

In each of the last three years, the number of officers leaving the Los Angeles Police Department has been on average 50% higher than the number of departures each year in the previous decade. A greater percentage of those leaving are quitting to work for other departments.

Meanwhile, the city’s efforts to recruit replacements have fallen far short of success.

Dogged by inefficiency that is turning away many would-be LAPD officers, hiring efforts are foundering and the shortfall between the number of officers leaving and arriving continues to grow. In July, the monthly class for new recruits was canceled for lack of qualified candidates.

The nearly 9,000-member force now has about 800 fewer officers than in the late 1990s, and the LAPD expects the shortfall to grow. To make up for the gap, officers in key behind-the-scenes posts are being forced back to the streets, and retired cops are being lured back to work.

Perhaps no task facing the police department of the nation’s second-largest city is more daunting than hiring and keeping officers. Although all big city departments are having difficulty attracting hires, the LAPD has a passel of problems: an unpopular work schedule, a tarnished image, an arduous application process, and even a reluctance on the part of officers to encourage others to sign up.

“We’ve been hemorrhaging officers the past several years, losing them when we just can’t afford to,” said Mayor James K. Hahn, who has renewed his campaign pledge to implement a compressed work schedule.

Despite misgivings on the part of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, Hahn said he eventually wants to put patrol officers on a three-day, 12-hour workweek.

Like his predecessor, Richard J. Riordan, Hahn has vowed to make boosting the size of the department among his highest priorities.

But like Riordan, Hahn may find that is a lot easier to say than to implement.

In the last three years, an average of about 640 officers have left the department annually. In the 10 years prior, 430 cops on average left the department each year.

LAPD officials insist the bulge in departures is because of retirements by veteran cops hired after the Vietnam War.

Indeed, the department does have a glut of retirees. But in 2000, for example, resignations accounted for about 50% of those leaving, one of the highest percentages ever. By comparison, in 1990, a fairly typical year until recently, about 30% of the officers who left did so through resignations.

The May statistics show how bad the problem has become.

In exit interviews, many officers said they were switching departments so they could patrol safer streets, receive better pay and benefits, and get better support from their bosses.

Most also said they wanted a better work schedule. While the LAPD requires officers to work a traditional five-day workweek, the majority of Southern California police departments offer either a three- or four-day workweek with more hours per shift.

“I have probably added a number of years to my life because I switched agencies,” said Brian Mack, an LAPD officer for six years before joining the Newport Beach Police Department in January, partly because his new three-day schedule will more easily allow him to pursue a college degree. “I’m a whole lot happier.”

Mack’s departure fits a pattern. Small agencies all over Southern California--from Newport Beach to Culver City to Santa Ana--say they are getting more transfers than usual from the LAPD.

Acknowledging this exodus, Parks counters that his emphasis on toughening the department’s discipline system to protect the rights of citizens is one reason for resignations, because a stricter level of accountability weeds out officers considered undesirable.

Some officers willingly left rather than face suspension, a formal complaint panel known as a Board of Rights hearing, or firing, said LAPD spokesman Lt. Horace Frank. “They see the writing on the wall and leave,” he said.

The loss of cops would not be as much of an issue if the LAPD were able to bring in enough new officers as replacements.

Since 1996, the Police Academy has had a steady decline in graduates, even as the department has pushed for more cops. Over the last year, the LAPD trained about 280 officers, less than one-third the number graduating from the academy five years ago and hardly enough to make up for the losses.

The LAPD’s current academy class has 26 cadets, far from the goal of 100. The July class was canceled because it would have been too small.

The hiring process is partially to blame. Before entering the Police Academy, recruits must pass a series of exams and background checks that can take longer than a year, a journey that weeds out roughly 93% of all candidates. A Los Angeles County grand jury, in a recent review, described the process as “lengthy, unfriendly and negative.”

The grand jury said candidates were sometimes made to feel like they “should be grateful [the] LAPD was even considering” them.

LAPD and city Personnel Department hiring officials, who work in tandem to test and evaluate applicants, say they are trying to become more friendly. This year they have started special units to track candidates through the testing process and trained background investigators how to be more service-oriented.

Of greater concern, city and LAPD officials say, is solving a problem created when the hiring process was toughened after a unit of anti-gang officers in the Rampart Division were accused of abuse and planting evidence.

In February, the LAPD began giving lie detector tests to candidates who had passed initial exams. The agency expected many applicants would be weeded out by its physical and medical exams, which traditionally eliminate about one-third of the recruits.

But state and federal laws protecting the disabled from job discrimination required that all applicants take the polygraph test before their physicals.

“That came as a surprise to us,” Parks said.

Because there are only nine polygraph examiners, the resulthas been massive gridlock.

Applicants hoping to get job offers quickly are being forced to wait six months just to take their polygraph tests.

“This whole thing was poorly thought out,” said LAPD Capt. Paul Enox, whose Scientific Investigation Division was given the task of administering the polygraph tests.

One solution may be to hire a few more examiners, though the department has little space at its headquarters. The LAPD is discussing a plan to hire private examiners and to team with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which has conducted polygraph tests for years.

Department officials admit that until they smooth out the process, hiring will not improve much.

“There’s no doubt we are going to lose really good, qualified candidates until we work this slowdown out,” said Dean Hansell, outgoing vice president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. “Other departments are much quicker with their backgrounds.”

That fact was not lost on eight hopefuls who streamed out of the LAPD academy’s test site after taking their entrance exams in mid-June. Most said they were planning to apply to other agencies and take the first job offer.

“I’m pretty serious about becoming a police officer, and I’m leaning toward the LAPD,” said Oscar Bocanegra, 24, a recent college graduate. “But if I have to wait a year to get in, and if another agency asks for me, I don’t plan on waiting for the LAPD.”

Another problem involves disillusioned cops.

Many officers, even members of the command staff, have stopped advising friends and relatives to join the force.

“Our best recruiters have traditionally been our own officers,” said Cmdr. Betty Kelepecz of the LAPD’s Personnel Group. “They aren’t bringing in new officers like before.”

Added an LAPD division captain, speaking on the condition of anonymity: “I’ve simply stopped recruiting. I won’t tell people to join us until we turn around our attitudes,” the captain said.

In May, then-Mayor Riordan announced a boost to the incentive program in which city employees, including police, receive cash for recruiting officers, increasing the reward to $500. The program appears to have had little effect--that month, only three people took advantage of it.

The improved reward system, and changes such as the recent decision to increase the maximum age for hiring from 35 to 40 and a $2,000 signing bonus for new officers, underscore the ways the LAPD has tried to alter and improve its recruiting.

Department officials also had high hopes for an unprecedented national recruiting campaign, which sent recruiters to 26 states two years ago.

Since the recruiters proctored on-the-road exams, thousands of people took the entrance exam. But the number of hires was nowhere near what officials wanted.

The recruiters’ trip to New Jersey last summer was one example of how badly things went. Their booth at Rutgers University attracted 185 applicants. Only five pursued LAPD jobs. As of April, none had made it to the academy.

This year, the City Council decided to spend $1 million on an advertising campaign selling the softer side of police work--the moments when officers help deliver babies or hand out blankets to the homeless.

One billboard near Cahuenga and Sunset boulevards in Hollywood reads: “30 Nov. 10:20 AM. On this street, three officers rescued two girls who were kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Do good. Join the LAPD. Call 866-444-LAPD.”

Yet many officers grouse at the ads, saying they are not reflective of how difficult policing can be.

And Parks has not been sold on the campaign’s usefulness.

“At this point, the advertising hasn’t correlated to more people picking up the phone, and it hasn’t correlated to larger numbers applying to us,” he said. “We’ll just have to see how the ads and everything else we are doing turns out.”

Law enforcement experts say hiring is difficult for all police departments--particularly the large ones--and has been for a decade. Boosted by grants during the Clinton administration, police departments had to compete against each other and private sector employers in a strong job market.

Sociological factors have burdened police hiring as well, as agencies struggle to remain viable as a potential employer.

According to experts like UC Irvine criminologist C. Ronald Huff, LAPD recruiters have to contend with fallout from events such as the Rodney King beating and the Rampart police corruption scandal. “Scandal has plagued these folks and it has to be affecting hiring,” said Huff, referring to the LAPD.

Among the nation’s largest metropolitan forces, the LAPD is hardly alone as it struggles to hire more cops. Large cities nationwide are experiencing similar problems.

Over the last year, New York City’s police department shrank by about 1,600 officers and Chicago’s by about 650, according to figures from the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police. Neither department has reached anywhere near its goal for new hires, said the association’s Elaine Deck, a researcher who tracks hiring practices nationwide.

But criminologists say the hiring woes are of particular concern in Los Angeles because the LAPD has far fewer officers per capita than cities of similar size.

The LAPD is appreciably smaller than it was just a few years ago. In 1993, Riordan, entering office with a promise to increase a force of 7,500 by about 30%, helped boost the number to 9,800, the most officers ever.

The current shortfall has caused the department to alter its deployment practices. Dozens of officers previously working inside divisions--those running specialized units or training to be detectives, for example--have been sent back out on street patrol.

The department also is calling on retirees. A June letter from Parks and Personnel Chief Thom Brennan to many retired officers asked them to consider coming back to take desk jobs, a prospect sweetened by the fact they could earn their salary plus normal pensions.

Hahn said he is trying to find a solution. During the recent mayoral campaign, after working closely with the Los Angeles Police Protective League to find common ground, he promised a switch to the so-called 3-12 work schedule.

At an appearance last week at the Santa Ana Police Department, which has flexible scheduling, Hahn reiterated his belief that a compressed work schedule will help solve the hiring problem. Hahn had pledged during the campaign to implement the program within 90 days of taking office but now says it may take more time to institute it throughout the LAPD. He said he hopes to begin in October with more than one of the LAPD’s 18 divisions.

LAPD officials are hopeful because applications have been increasing every month this year. In June, the department tested about 1,000 candidates, twice as many as in January.

Parks said the weaker economy may be leading more people--including those interviewed in other states last year--to consider the LAPD, which pays its first-year officers a base salary of $44,500 to $60,000.

Department officials contend they are still not convinced that LAPD problems such as the Rampart scandal are keeping recruits away. Recruits rarely ask about such issues, officials said.

“We simply believe there’s no tangible proof any of these problems are causing us difficulty in our hiring,” said Frank, the LAPD spokesman.

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Recruiting Blues

As the Los Angeles Police Department has shrunk in the last few years, so have appointments to the Police Academy.

*

LAPD Force

1990: 8,458

20000: 8,979*

*

* Through April

*

Police Academy Enrollment

(fiscal years)

*

1996-97 961

1997-98 658

1998-99 537

1999-2000 394

*

Source: Los Angeles Police Dept.