For Seattle’s political elite, one issue has become an inescapable enigma: It seems like no one wants to be a police officer. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has lost 612 officers, far more than the 251 officers who have been recruited.
While the rate of attrition slowed in 2023, it will be nearly impossible for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to recover to pre-pandemic staffing levels in the near future. Sworn SPD staffing levels are now hitting the lowest levels since the 1990s.
These struggles are part of a nationwide trend. In 2019, the International Association of Chiefs of Police was already declaring recruitment a “crisis,” reporting that 78% of law enforcement agencies had difficulty finding qualified applicants. This has only accelerated since 2020, with a study by the Police Executive Research Forum finding that sworn officer staffing declined by 4.8% between 2020 and 2023.
At a March 12 public safety committee meeting, Seattle City Council members discussed a presentation about the city’s police hiring challenges. SPD staff said one of the challenges is economic — entry-level pay for officers is $83,000, a figure that has remained unchanged for four years due to the city’s inability to negotiate a new labor contract since it expired at the end of 2020. While this is still higher than the city’s median wage, police salaries have now fallen behind other regional law enforcement agencies.
According to the presentation, Seattle ranks 15th out of the 19 departments that were surveyed. The highest paid entry-level positions were at the Redmond Police Department, which has a starting annual wage of $101,844.
Since fall 2021, Seattle has spent more than $5 million on marketing and hiring incentives; it is currently offering new hires sign-on bonuses ranging between $7,500 and $30,000.
The lackluster hiring is a particularly vexing challenge for Mayor Bruce Harrell, who made restoring SPD staffing a key campaign promise. In the 2023 budget, the city council allocated $1.5 million for advertising and outreach to potential applicants. However, the city didn’t start spending most of the money until August 2023, when SPD finalized its contract with the ad agency Copacino Fujikado.
According to the SPD presentation, applications remained steady between August 2023 and January 2024, at an average of about six a day. However, in the last month, the rate has ticked up significantly to more than nine a day, which could be a result of the marketing campaign or due to the limited data collection period. The recruitment effort has also encompassed increasing SPD’s presence at job fairs, signing up for the job board website Handshake and modernizing the hiring process to make applying online easier.
However, the biggest barrier for applicants remains getting through the examination process. In order to become a Seattle cop, a person must complete the Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) exam, which has a pass rate of 68%. Recently, the city reduced the waiting period between exam completion and hire date from six months to three.
At the city council meeting, some members expressed frustration with the drawn-out testing process.
“I don’t get a sense of urgency, frankly, when I’m listening to your presentation, and that’s not acceptable,” said Councilmember Cathy Moore when addressing a member of the PSCSC.
Sara Nelson, the city council president, suggested Seattle explore providing subsidized housing to SPD officers to help alleviate cost of living concerns.
Public safety committee chair Robert Kettle blamed the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that called for a 50% reduction in police funding, which seven councilmembers endorsed, for making potential police applicants feel unwelcomed.
“Clearly the Seattle City Council gave mixed messages over the past years, at best, that sadly communicated police officers were not wanted,” Kettle said. “The defund pledge was a message of ‘you’re not wanted,’ with tragic consequences.”
However, there may be another factor at play: Younger generations have become increasingly skeptical of policing as a profession. In a February 2023 Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 34% of voters under 40 were confident that police were adequately trained to avoid excessive use of force, compared to 44% of voters 65 and over.
Some community organizations, like Seattle Solidarity Budget, have called for less emphasis on police staffing. The group has suggested resources be spent on non-police crime prevention strategies such as providing community outreach and addressing people’s basic needs. In a March 12 Instagram post, Seattle Solidarity Budget highlighted the Rainier Beach Action Coalition’s youth programs, claiming they have led to a 33% decrease in violence in the neighborhood.
There are also concerns about SPD’s handling of institutionalized patriarchy. In a city-commissioned report into the internal culture of the department obtained by KUOW in February 2023, researchers found that many female cops — who make up 16% of all sworn officers — found the department’s work environment to be toxic. Only 13% of applicants in 2023 were women, despite making up about half of Seattle’s population.
While Seattle police staffing levels declined by about 26% between 2017 and 2023, crime rates have been much more stable. According to SPD data, violent crime ticked up about 8% between 2017 and 2023, while property crime decreased by 7% over that same period. There were small but significant spikes in crime in 2021 and 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This suggests there is little to no correlation between SPD staffing and crime.
Guy Oron is the staff reporter for Real Change. He handles coverage of our weekly news stories. Find them on Twitter, @GuyOron.
Read more of the March 20-26, 2024 issue.