For years, the main reason to visit this tiny town was to get a look at the Chicago Bears in training camp. This week, the Chicago Police Department was here looking for potential recruits.
If it seems an odd place, it matches the times, as police departments battle for better-educated recruits in a robust economy that has shrunk the job pool.
Historically, a police officer position has been tough to land despite its high risks, lousy hours and modest pay.
The reasons were simple enough. Police work provided long-term stability and benefits. There was the perception it was an honorable, even heroic, profession. The educational requirements were minimal.
Competition for the limited number of positions could be intense. Chicago police exams for a few hundred jobs, for example, typically would draw 15,000 to 20,000 applicants. Suburban departments often would rent gymnasiums to handle the hundreds of applicants for a handful of positions.
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But now, all that is changing for police departments across the country. It is a predicament that prompted Chicago police to dispatch recruiters out of state for the first time.
“We have a lot of competition from other departments and from colleges, where people are exploring other interests,” said Sgt. Ruth Wedster, who heads the Chicago Police Department’s Ambassador Program and sent two uniformed officers to Wednesday’s career day at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Future recruiting trips are scheduled in Dubuque, Iowa, and Milwaukee, and to the U.S. Marine Corps base at Camp LeJeune, N.C. Meanwhile, Los Angeles police staged a recruiting raid in Chicago last month.
Most police administrators blame the economy for the manpower problem. But they also contend the younger generation is less inclined to conform to the structure of police departments. And departments are upgrading their hiring standards.
Complicating matters further, experts say, are negative stereotypes of police officers–illustrated by outrage over the LaTanya Haggerty police shooting in Chicago and recent police shootings in New York–and fear police face increased risks of criminal liability for split-second decisions made under stressful conditions.
The result, in police vernacular, is known as “the short blue line” or “the cop crunch.”
“If there was ever a time in a person’s life when he or she wanted to be a police officer, now is the time to apply,” said Rolling Meadows Deputy Police Chief Doug Larsson, vice chairman of a police testing consortium for the Northwest Municipal Conference.
Whatever the catchphrase, the number of potential recruits is plummeting.
In Chicago, for example, 2,517 men and women took the police exam Jan. 5–about four applicants for each of the estimated 650 positions available this year. Three years ago, more than 10,000 took the exam, said police spokesman Pat Camden.
In Naperville, 66 recruits took the exam in August and 34 passed. Five years ago, 481 people took the exam, yielding a final qualifying list of 231 recruits.
In January, a consortium of five departments in the north and northwest suburbs held a mandatory orientation for interested recruits. About 900 people attended, less than half the turnout earlier in the decade.
To fight those discouraging numbers, departments are scrambling and trying to be creative.
The Palatine Police Department set up a Web site that attracted applications from Greece, Finland and Mexico and across the U.S. Chicago’s Ambassador Program recruits at church group visits. Naperville’s recruitment team of six officers visits colleges several times a year, and Rolling Meadows placed ads on Hispanic radio stations.
And, in March, the Los Angeles Police Department spent several days in Illinois recruiting officers and administering tests. Recruiters stopped at the University of Chicago, Chicago State University, College of DuPage, College of Lake County and Joliet Junior College, among others.
The Chicago Police Department’s venture about 140 miles north of their patrol area was encouraging, said Officers Bill Bernath and Robert Rubio. Clad in dress uniforms, they chatted with more than 90 young people. Behind them was a photo display of bicycle cops on the lakefront and the skyline with officers on horseback.
UW-P graduate Joseph Lefevre, 23, of Appleton, Wis., and Sarah Shafarik, 18, a criminal justice student at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, were intrigued enough to sign cards asking for more information about being a Chicago cop. Both were drawn by Chicago’s diversity.
“Every day would be different,” Lefevre said. “That’s a challenge I’ve never had before. So many of my friends work at various paper mills and there is no challenge to it after the first week. They push a button, wait a second and they push another button.”
Shafarik was attracted by Chicago’s size, a dramatic change from her hometown of Hayward, Wis., population 1,800.
“Every now and then I get an urge to try a big city,” she said. “There’s more to do … and you work to help people.”
Homewood Police Chief Dan McDevitt teaches management of a changing police force at Northwestern University’s Traffic Institute.
“With many people who were born between 1965 and ’75,” McDevitt said, “it’s a whole different ballgame.”
Potential recruits from that generation dislike the erratic schedules and the highly disciplined, structured and quasi-military organization of police departments, he said. Those who do choose police work tend to lose patience with the often slow pace of promotions.
“You’re talking about a generation of people who are the latchkey kids,” McDevitt said. “They flip a switch on a video game, press a button and a spaceship blows up. They’re used to instant action, instant reaction. That’s why you’re getting people who are in the department for a year and they’re astounded that they’re not a sergeant yet.”
Craig Fraser, associate director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a private, non-profit police research and consulting organization in Washington, sees some reason for optimism in the shrinking numbers.
“What we’re seeing is this desire for high-caliber people,” he said. “I don’t think we’re seeing departments hiring people just to fill spots.”
Camden, the Chicago police spokesman, agreed. Expanded recruiting and more frequent entrance exams–two or three times a year instead of once every three or four years–have helped make up for prospective officers choosing other careers, he said.
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Added Larsson of Rolling Meadows: “We’re still hiring the quality people. We’re just not seeing the same number of people come out.”
Upgraded educational requirements is one reason.
In 1997, Chicago began requiring recruits to have two years of college and be 23 years old before they don the uniform. Previously, recruits’ minimum age was 20, and they needed a high school diploma.
Naperville began requiring a bachelor’s degree in August. In 1998, Rolling Meadows began hiring only recruits with at least two years of college. Homewood started doing so last year.
“We don’t feel we’re losing anything by it,” said Homewood Police Lt. Jim Gannon, noting that college-educated officers generally have stronger writing and computer skills. “We feel we’re gaining by it.”
The Chicago Police Department may have gained Jeb McKinney at the Platteville job fair. McKinney, 20, from Madison, Wis., said he liked the idea of working with a partner, the benefits and the excitement of working on a big department. And, McKinney noted, Wisconsin is an easy escape.
“I can still commute back,” he said. “It’s a short trip.”