Or that your town is a slum and no one wants to work there.
So here's another myth to bust.
While other industries were devastated by the pandemic last year, police departments felt a much smaller impact.
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According to federal data, those worries are unfounded. Last year, as the overall U.S. economy shed 6% of workers,
local police departments lost just under 1% of employees after a decade of steady expansion, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about 4,000 people out of nearly half a million employees in municipal police departments and sheriff’s offices nationwide.
State and
federal law enforcement departments actually saw a slight increase in the number of employees. 1
Law enforcement’s employment numbers tend not to fluctuate dramatically. Policing is a secure job, according to Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which explains the relatively small increase in retirements and resignations over 2020. Police jobs are often last on the chopping block when cities are considering budget cuts. Pensions and relatively high pay make it appealing to stay. Many of the officers who retired in 2020 were probably going to retire in a couple of years anyway, says Moskos, who suspects very few police would quit outright. Morale may be low, but, in Moskos’s view, that’s always been the case.
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