Police Staffing Is Back to 2022 Levels as Retirements Loom

Law enforcement agencies have spent the past five years trying to refill their ranks after a wave of departures that began in 2020. The latest survey from the Police Executive Research Forum suggests that effort is paying off, at least for now. PERF reported in May that sworn staffing among responding agencies has rebounded to its 2022 level as departments adopt new hiring strategies.

The survey covers just under 200 agencies and looks at total sworn staffing on January 1 of each year. Crime analyst Jeff Asher, reviewing the results, noted that hiring has increased every year since 2022 and jumped sharply in 2025.

Resignations steadied, retirements climbed

The good news is on the resignation side. Resignations rose only 0.5 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to PERF. They remain higher than in 2019 and 2020 but lower than the peak years of 2021 through 2023. Asher's review of the data shows resignations falling from 5,460 in 2022 to 4,012 in 2025.

Retirements are the new pressure point. Respondents reported 16.4 percent more retirements in 2025 than in 2024. Retirements had declined for two straight years before that increase, and they remain below the levels seen from 2020 through 2022. Still, a double-digit jump in a single year shows how quickly a department's experience base can thin out.

Retirements are harder to manage than resignations in one important way. A resigning officer often leaves after a few years. A retiring officer usually leaves after 20 or more, taking supervisory skill, investigative knowledge and community relationships that take a long time to rebuild. An agency can hire two recruits for every retiree and still lose capacity for several years.

Small agencies carry the heaviest load

PERF's 2025 survey found that small agencies, those with fewer than 50 officers, reported 60.4 percent more resignations in 2024 than in 2019, even after a year of improvement. Small departments rarely have dedicated recruiters, and a single vacancy can mean a missing shift. Many compete for the same applicants as larger agencies nearby that can offer higher pay and more specialized assignments.

PERF's report on responding to the staffing crisis recommends that agencies re-examine their hiring processes, update hiring standards where it makes sense and offer recruitment incentives such as take-home vehicles. Departments have also learned that the hiring process itself can drive candidates away. In earlier PERF surveys, agencies reported that a growing number of applicants removed themselves midway through hiring, often during long background and testing stages.

Regional cooperation can help. Some smaller agencies share academy slots, background investigators or recruiting events with neighboring departments, which spreads costs that a single department cannot carry alone. Others partner with local colleges and high school career programs to reach students early, long before those students compare offers from larger cities.

Lessons that travel beyond policing

The staffing pattern in law enforcement looks a lot like the one in other demanding public-facing work. In senior living, nurse turnover rose this year even as overall turnover eased. In construction, retirements drive most of the hiring need. In each case, the experienced workers leaving are the hardest to replace.

Three practices show up again and again among agencies that have recovered. They shorten the time between application and conditional offer, they keep in regular contact with candidates during background checks, and they invest in first-line supervisors who make new officers feel supported in their first year. That last point mirrors research from Gallup showing that manager engagement drives team engagement in almost every kind of workplace.

Reputation matters as well. Candidates research departments the same way they research private employers, reading local news coverage, social media and comments from current officers. An agency's public story about its culture, training and community relationships is part of its recruiting pitch whether leaders plan it that way or not. We look at how that research shapes hiring in our employer brand report.

Planning for the retirement curve

Agencies can predict most retirements years in advance by looking at hire dates and pension eligibility. Departments that map that curve, start promotional training early and pair senior officers with newer ones before they leave will feel the next wave far less. The 2026 data shows that policing can recover from a staffing crisis. Keeping that recovery depends on how well agencies plan for the departures they already know are coming.