This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/milwaukee-aside-police-ranks-recovering-across-wisconsin/

Still 6% fewer officers than decade ago

While Milwaukee continues to struggle putting sworn officers on the streets, the police departments in Wisconsin’s other largest cities are at or fast approaching full staffing.

Many of the state’s major departments have over the past four years had to contend with local budget and union contract battles and a surge in baby boomer retirements.

They are still dealing with the fallout from COVID in 2020, which was followed quickly by the statewide rioting after George Floyd’s death in May of that year and the rise of the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements.

The sworn officer numbers in-state suggest a strong rebound in the past year. Departments across Wisconsin currently employ 13,334 officers, according to state Department of Justice data provided to the Badger Institute — up from a decade-low 13,139 officers in 2023 but still far lower than a decade ago. In 2014, departments employed 14,034 officers, or 6.4% more, according to the Department of Justice.

A survey by the Police Executive Research Forum of more than 200 departments nationwide showed hiring of sworn officers in 2023 at levels higher than the previous four years, with reduced numbers of officers leaving their departments.

Patrick Solar, a criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, told the Badger Institute, “Everyone has been struggling, but we are turning a corner now. Our enrollment is up here in criminal justice, so interest in these careers is picking back up again.”

Meghan Stroshine, an associate professor at Marquette University who studies policing issues, says large cities such as Milwaukee are understaffed and fighting generational changes to recruit and keep sworn officers. Smaller cities such as Madison and Kenosha, where rioting in the wake of George Floyd was pitched and drawn out, have recovered well.

“Are things improving?” Stroshine asked. “Have we ‘turned the corner’? It’s too early to call. Many departments are still finding it challenging to attract and retain officers.”

The Badger Institute recently contacted police departments for the 11 biggest cities in Wisconsin. Of those that responded (Appleton and Eau Claire did not), Madison was the only fully staffed department, with 492 officers.

Waukesha, however, was down just one officer from a full complement of 125 officers. Green Bay was down seven from a full staff of 188 officers. Oshkosh was down seven from a full staff of 107. West Allis was 10 officers short of a full complement of 126.

Janesville Police Chief Chad Pearson said his city budgets for 105, but the department is currently under 100. The state’s shared revenue formula, Pearson said, has made it tough to keep up with cities of comparable size in Wisconsin.

“We could hire around 18 more officers if funded correctly and equally to our peer cities,” Pearson said. “We would employ around 28 additional officers if we were funded to support federal recommendations.”

The Kenosha Police Department currently is 11 vacancies short of its allocation of 222 sworn officers. “We are finalizing our most recent hiring process now, so if all goes well, we will be fully staffed by January of 2025,” Lt. Joshua Hecker said.

Racine has had a tougher time of it. Staffing is down 25 officers from the 196 that constitute a full staff. But as recently as the start of 2022, the department had fewer than 140 sworn officers, prompting the city to consider enlisting the help of the Racine County Sheriff’s Department, Police Chief Alex Ramirez told the Badger Institute. 

In addition to the rioting and an accompanying new hostility toward law enforcement in Racine, violent crime spiked. Officers had been working without a contract since 2020, Ramirez said.

“We were losing command staff and veterans,” he said. “We lost officers to other agencies in the area where the pay was better.”

Ramirez, a 30-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department, had been the assistant chief during those years. He was sworn in as chief Dec. 1 of last year.

After settling the wage portion of the contract, the department went on an aggressive recruiting campaign, offering bonuses of up to $5,000 for new academy enrollees, student loan repayment and a $10,000 stipend for new officers to buy a house in the city of Racine, Ramirez said.

With a jump in academy enrollment more than doubling the five or six officers lost to retirement or resignation every year, Ramirez said he is confident his department will be fully staffed by the end of 2025.

“There was a time not too long ago when police officers felt they weren’t appreciated, that people were getting away with anything, that prosecutors weren’t prosecuting anything,” he said. “We changed. We developed a fair and impartial policing program. And the public opinion has changed. The cooperation, the generosity, the caring — you can really see it here.”

Things are much tougher in Milwaukee, where the city’s 1,572 sworn police officers as of mid-October is down 15.7% from the average of 1,864 officers funded in the 2019 budget, according to MPD data.

With the boost in Act 12, the last state budget, in the amount of shared revenue from the state, the police department could budget for another 73 officers — if the department could find them to hire.

That shared revenue deal requires within the next 10 years that MPD bring its sworn officer number to 1,725. Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said he intends to make sure the department meets that total well before the 10 years are up. The city stands to lose as much as $30 million of its $200 million in shared revenue if the department can’t meet its totals and its deadline.

The prospects of the department doing either is challenged by a fluctuation in the number of people applying for sworn officer positions: 1,373 in 2022, 895 in 2023 and roughly 1,000 so far this year, according to MPD data.

No police department in the state has been harder hit by city budget problems and current events than Milwaukee, Stroshine said. COVID made the job tougher and more hazardous. Vilification of officers after George Floyd made people wonder whether the job was worth it, she said.

And then there is the simple matter of a generational shift, the retirement of members of America’s biggest generation, to be replaced from among the much smaller generations that followed, she said.

 “There is enormous pressure to hire in large cities with the risk of losing shared revenue,” Stroshine said, “while they are also being hardest hit by staffing challenges.”

Most of the departments that responded to the survey reported that interest in and application for police officer training was trending in a positive direction.

In a perverse way, the pounding police departments and the public took from a pandemic and the revolt against traditional policing helped demonstrate to career seekers and taxpayers the value of a sworn officer, Ramirez said.

“It’s been a tough couple of years, but I think we’ve all learned a lot from it,” he said.

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.

Any use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written permission. To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at mike@badgerinstitute.org or 262-389-8239.

var gform;gform||(document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,function(){gform.scriptsLoaded=!0}),document.addEventListener(“gform/theme/scripts_loaded”,function(){gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0}),window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,function(){gform.domLoaded=!0}),gform={domLoaded:!1,scriptsLoaded:!1,themeScriptsLoaded:!1,isFormEditor:()=>”function”==typeof InitializeEditor,callIfLoaded:function(o){return!(!gform.domLoaded||!gform.scriptsLoaded||!gform.themeScriptsLoaded&&!gform.isFormEditor()||(gform.isFormEditor()&&console.warn(“The use of gform.initializeOnLoaded() is deprecated in the form editor context and will be removed in Gravity Forms 3.1.”),o(),0))},initializeOnLoaded:function(o){gform.callIfLoaded(o)||(document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,()=>{gform.scriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),document.addEventListener(“gform/theme/scripts_loaded”,()=>{gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,()=>{gform.domLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}))},hooks:{action:{},filter:{}},addAction:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook(“action”,o,r,e,t)},addFilter:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook(“filter”,o,r,e,t)},doAction:function(o){gform.doHook(“action”,o,arguments)},applyFilters:function(o){return gform.doHook(“filter”,o,arguments)},removeAction:function(o,r){gform.removeHook(“action”,o,r)},removeFilter:function(o,r,e){gform.removeHook(“filter”,o,r,e)},addHook:function(o,r,e,t,n){null==gform.hooks[o][r]&&(gform.hooks[o][r]=[]);var d=gform.hooks[o][r];null==n&&(n=r+”_”+d.length),gform.hooks[o][r].push({tag:n,callable:e,priority:t=null==t?10:t})},doHook:function(r,o,e){var t;if(e=Array.prototype.slice.call(e,1),null!=gform.hooks[r][o]&&((o=gform.hooks[r][o]).sort(function(o,r){return o.priority-r.priority}),o.forEach(function(o){“function”!=typeof(t=o.callable)&&(t=window[t]),”action”==r?t.apply(null,e):e[0]=t.apply(null,e)})),”filter”==r)return e[0]},removeHook:function(o,r,t,n){var e;null!=gform.hooks[o][r]&&(e=(e=gform.hooks[o][r]).filter(function(o,r,e){return!!(null!=n&&n!=o.tag||null!=t&&t!=o.priority)}),gform.hooks[o][r]=e)}});

/* = 0;if(!is_postback){return;}var form_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_wrapper_21’);var is_confirmation = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_confirmation_wrapper_21’).length > 0;var is_redirect = contents.indexOf(‘gformRedirect(){‘) >= 0;var is_form = form_content.length > 0 && ! is_redirect && ! is_confirmation;var mt = parseInt(jQuery(‘html’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + parseInt(jQuery(‘body’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + 100;if(is_form){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).html(form_content.html());if(form_content.hasClass(‘gform_validation_error’)){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).addClass(‘gform_validation_error’);} else {jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).removeClass(‘gform_validation_error’);}setTimeout( function() { /* delay the scroll by 50 milliseconds to fix a bug in chrome */ jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).offset().top – mt); }, 50 );if(window[‘gformInitDatepicker’]) {gformInitDatepicker();}if(window[‘gformInitPriceFields’]) {gformInitPriceFields();}var current_page = jQuery(‘#gform_source_page_number_21’).val();gformInitSpinner( 21, ‘https://e74sq7k37a8.exactdn.com/wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/images/spinner.svg’, true );jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_page_loaded’, [21, current_page]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;}else if(!is_redirect){var confirmation_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘.GF_AJAX_POSTBACK’).html();if(!confirmation_content){confirmation_content = contents;}jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).replaceWith(confirmation_content);jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gf_21’).offset().top – mt);jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_confirmation_loaded’, [21]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;wp.a11y.speak(jQuery(‘#gform_confirmation_message_21’).text());}else{jQuery(‘#gform_21’).append(contents);if(window[‘gformRedirect’]) {gformRedirect();}}jQuery(document).trigger(“gform_pre_post_render”, [{ formId: “21”, currentPage: “current_page”, abort: function() { this.preventDefault(); } }]); if (event && event.defaultPrevented) { return; } const gformWrapperDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_wrapper_21” ); if ( gformWrapperDiv ) { const visibilitySpan = document.createElement( “span” ); visibilitySpan.id = “gform_visibility_test_21”; gformWrapperDiv.insertAdjacentElement( “afterend”, visibilitySpan ); } const visibilityTestDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_visibility_test_21” ); let postRenderFired = false; function triggerPostRender() { if ( postRenderFired ) { return; } postRenderFired = true; jQuery( document ).trigger( ‘gform_post_render’, [21, current_page] ); gform.utils.trigger( { event: ‘gform/postRender’, native: false, data: { formId: 21, currentPage: current_page } } ); gform.utils.trigger( { event: ‘gform/post_render’, native: false, data: { formId: 21, currentPage: current_page } } ); if ( visibilityTestDiv ) { visibilityTestDiv.parentNode.removeChild( visibilityTestDiv ); } } function debounce( func, wait, immediate ) { var timeout; return function() { var context = this, args = arguments; var later = function() { timeout = null; if ( !immediate ) func.apply( context, args ); }; var callNow = immediate && !timeout; clearTimeout( timeout ); timeout = setTimeout( later, wait ); if ( callNow ) func.apply( context, args ); }; } const debouncedTriggerPostRender = debounce( function() { triggerPostRender(); }, 200 ); if ( visibilityTestDiv && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent === null ) { const observer = new MutationObserver( ( mutations ) => { mutations.forEach( ( mutation ) => { if ( mutation.type === ‘attributes’ && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent !== null ) { debouncedTriggerPostRender(); observer.disconnect(); } }); }); observer.observe( document.body, { attributes: true, childList: false, subtree: true, attributeFilter: [ ‘style’, ‘class’ ], }); } else { triggerPostRender(); } } );} );
/* ]]> */

The post Milwaukee aside, police ranks recovering across Wisconsin appeared first on Badger Institute.