California's largest police group says rural departments need more officers

Police staffing across California is at the lowest point in decades, with rural communities struggling the most in efforts to recruit officers, according to a new report from the state's largest law enforcement organization.

The analysis comes just months ahead of an election in which Californians will vote on Proposition 36, a ballot measure that would toughen criminal penalties for retail theft and drug offenses and lead to an increase in arrests. The briefing report by the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California suggests more money should be poured into law enforcement agencies, especially rural ones seeing an exodus of officers, to help support officer recruitment and retention.

“We’ve been trying to push out more research in regards to public safety, especially with the election this year,” said Brian Marvel, the president of PORAC, which represents more than 80,000 law enforcement members and also supports Proposition 36. “November will be a critical time in our nation and California as crime and perception of crime is a very hot topic.”

The PORAC report took data from an online portal published by the California Department of Justice and looked solely at sworn officers, including city police, sheriff's departments, California Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies.

The report pointed to the fact that police staffing in the state is at a 30-year low, particularly in rural counties , and compared the number of officers per square mile in rural and urban departments. Compared with their urban counterparts, some rural areas have more acute shortages, leading to longer response times, according to the analysis.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), a member of the Legislative Black Caucus whose legislation often touches on public safety and incarceration, called the report “cherry-picked” and “misleading.” Bryan is concerned that PORAC’s report doesn’t paint the whole picture of policing in California. The analysis did not include a breakdown of officers per capita.

"Obviously rural counties will have fewer officers because they’re less densely populated, but I don't think that tells the whole story," Bryan told The Times. "This report doesn’t highlight the amount of money paid out from police brutality lawsuits or speak to money spent on military equipment. It tells the story that the authors would like to tell but doesn't tell a story that is created from original, thoughtful, and rigorous analysis."

Some departments with vacancies say that officers are leaving because of the emotional toll the job has taken on them, that the recruiting process is too lengthy, and that there has been negative rhetoric around policing in recent years, according to the report.

The bulk of local police funding is in the hands of local governments. There are, however, state funds distributed to counties and cities each year to pay for police, fire departments, corrections and district attorneys, according to H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance.

The five counties that received the most funding from the state last year were Los Angeles County, which received $1.07 billion, followed by Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County, which each received less than $500 million, Palmer said.

And while vacancies are felt across agencies, spending year after year has incrementally increased in city police departments, according to expenditure data from the California state controller's office.

To resolve these staffing woes, departments have offered recruitment incentives.

A representative for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office cited retirements and younger people's lack of interest in law enforcement careers. The county has seen deputies leaving for neighboring counties that offer more competitive pay. Mendocino County, which has a population of 91,000 people, has lost 22 sworn officers from 2013 to 2023, according to Department of Justice data .

In Merced County, where the local Sheriff's Office has offered its own $10,000 signing bonuses, Sheriff Vern Warnke previously told The Times that the situation is so dire that even the bonuses aren't enough to retain officers who are leaving. The county has gained 111 sworn officers between 2013 and 2023.

Some of the most qualified candidates in the state's rural departments are being recruited by other agencies such as the Alameda Police Department, which last year offered eye-grabbing signing bonuses , totaling $75,000 per recruit, to replenish officer headcount.

In San Francisco, where the Police Department has been criticized for low staffing — having lost 461 sworn officers from 2013 to 2023 — and long response times, the Board of Supervisors this week will be deciding on a piece of legislation that could establish student loan forgiveness for the city's sworn officers.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department, one of the state's largest forces, is losing more officers than it is graduating from the police academy.

In 2021, California cities spent more than $14.8 billion on policing and counties spent $7.5 billion, and the state spent $2.8 billion on the California Highway Patrol, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. After a brief uptick in violent and property crimes in 2022, crime trends are down in California's largest cities, according to the PPIC.

Marvel of PORAC said that the last few years have challenged the profession and resulted in a vicious cycle of fewer recruits and higher rates of retirements and early departures. What's left, he said, is fewer officers to respond to calls, which, in the most rural areas, can severely lengthen times for officers to arrive to calls.

He said that with potential changes to Proposition 47, a decade-old ballot measure that reduced the number of people sent to prison for low-level drug and theft crimes, more arrests are likely to be made, resulting in the state needing more police officers.

“I think the staffing issue is something that’s been needed for a long time, but with Proposition 36 making substantial changes to Proposition 47," he said, "obviously you're going to need some change in staffing.”

Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), who once served as the chair of a budget subcommittee on public safety, said police agencies should be focused more on hiring educated, "more mature" officers than on just a headcount.

"We need to recruit more of those, period," he said. "What I’m not for is where we end up with more Black and brown people being shot indiscriminately because we just put a bunch of people with guns on the street who are not prepared for modern-day policing."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .