When Experience Leaves the Force, Mistakes Multiply

When I was a new police officer, I arrested a person with a felony warrant. When I went through booking, a veteran officer asked if I was going to remove the knife strapped to his leg underneath his clothing. It was an embarrassing example of the value of experience versus inexperience.

When I read articles about crime and justice, it’s not unusual to read about “mistakes” made by new officers. I assume it’s the same in any profession; seasoned people make fewer errors.

A variety of data states that we have lost tens of thousands of experienced police officers, which has an impact on everything required of law enforcement.

I sometimes ask myself, when reading about controversial issues, if they would have happened at all if the officer involved was well-trained, well-equipped, and seasoned.

The Numbers

Of approximately 708,000 sworn U.S. police officers, about 57,000 left their jobs in 2020, while roughly 64,000 positions remained vacant, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) uses older datasets because it’s examining a large universe, thus giving readers a fairly accurate sense of how many officers leave police employment each year. 2020 data is representative of today’s conditions.

The 64,000-vacancy figure gives readers a sense of how difficult it is to retain experienced staff.

The chart below suggests that we lost more police officers in 2020 than we gained through recruitment. The same happened in 2003 and 2013.

Note that there are a variety of figures as to the police staffing crisis, with large agencies stating that they are often hundreds of officers below authorized strength.

An article on this site using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that law enforcement agencies lost over 25,000 police officers and employees for the years measured.

The USDOJ Report

Hiring and Retention of State and Local Law Enforcement Officers, 2020, published in March 2026 by the USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), presents statistics on the hires and separations of full-time sworn personnel by general-purpose law enforcement agencies and the incentives offered to retain them.

Findings in the report are based on BJS’s Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. Conducted periodically since 1987, the LEMAS survey collects data on a range of topics from a nationally representative sample of general-purpose state and local law enforcement agencies.

General-purpose agencies include municipal, county, and regional police departments; most sheriffs’ offices; and primary state and highway patrol agencies.

• There were 64,200 full-time sworn vacancies reported across all agency types, with 39,500 vacancies in local police departments, 16,300 in sheriffs’ offices, and 8,400 in primary state agencies.
• Among the 55,000 full-time sworn personnel hired, 81% were entry-level hires and 16% were lateral hires.
• Agencies employing fewer than 500 full-time equivalent (FTE) sworn personnel were more likely to have lateral hires than agencies employing 500 or more FTE sworn personnel.
• Among the 57,400 full-time sworn separations, 47% were voluntary resignations. These resignations were less common in agencies employing 500 or more FTE sworn personnel (30%) compared to smaller agencies.
• Among agencies employing 500 or more FTE sworn personnel, 97% offered paid academy training, compared to 57% of agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel.
• In 2020, general-purpose law enforcement agencies employed 1,056,000 full-time personnel, including 708,200 (67%) sworn officers. Agencies also employed 85,700 part-time personnel, 44% (37,700) of whom were sworn officers. 

What the BJS Numbers Mean

Vacancies

• In 2020, there were 64,200 full‑time sworn vacancies reported across all general‑purpose state and local law enforcement agencies (local police, sheriffs’ offices, and state agencies). “Vacancies” here means positions authorized but unfilled at the end of the year.

Hires

• During the year, agencies hired about 55,000 full‑time sworn personnel.

Separations

• Over the same period, agencies lost about 57,400 sworn personnel due to resignations, retirements, dismissals, deaths, etc.

Net Change

• The report states agencies experienced a net loss of approximately 2,400 officers in 2020. In other words: 55,000 hires − 57,400 separations ≈ −2,400 officers.

Chart

Chart

Chart

Recruitment

• In 2020, 49% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies offered free or reimbursed academy training as a recruitment incentive.
• Sixty-nine percent of general-purpose law enforcement agencies paid salaries during academy training.
• In 2020, 9 in 10 (89%) sworn personnel worked in agencies offering paid salary during academy training.
• Almost all (97%) agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel offered paid academy training, compared to 57% of agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel.
• A greater percentage of agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel (71%) offered free or reimbursed academy training than smaller agencies.
• Less than 2% of all general-purpose agencies offered relocation assistance, though such assistance was more common in agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel (6%) than smaller agencies.
• Three percent of all sworn personnel worked for an agency that offered relocation assistance.

Retention

• In 2020, 29% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies authorized or provided education incentive pay.
• About one-quarter (26%) of agencies authorized or provided shift differential pay.
• In 2020, more than half of all sworn personnel worked in agencies providing shift differential pay (54%) and education incentive pay (51%).
• Almost one-third (32%) of sworn personnel worked in agencies providing hazardous duty pay.
• Shift differential pay was authorized by 67% of agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel, compared to 21% of agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel.
• Education incentive pay was offered by 62% of agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel. In comparison, 58% of agencies with 100–499 FTE sworn personnel, 47% of agencies with 25–99 FTE sworn personnel, and 19% of agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel offered this incentive.
• Hazardous duty pay was provided by 50% of agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel, compared to 27% of agencies with 100–499 FTE sworn personnel, 13% of agencies with 25–99 FTE sworn personnel, and 6% of the agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel.
• In 2020, 9 out of 10 (91%) general-purpose law enforcement agencies offered at least one benefit to increase retention.
• Seventy-nine percent of agencies offered free or financial allowances for uniforms, 61% offered extra overtime opportunities, and 57% offered take-home vehicles.
• More than 9 in 10 (92%) sworn personnel worked in an agency that offered free uniforms or a financial allowance for uniforms, and more than three-quarters worked in agencies that offered Employee Assistance Programs (79%) or extra overtime opportunities (78%).
• Most agencies (95%) employing 500 or more FTE sworn personnel offered free or financial allowance for uniforms, a larger proportion than in smaller agencies.
• A greater percentage of agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel offered peer support programs (85%), increased pay at specific service milestones (73%), college tuition reimbursement (69%), and enhanced retirement benefits (50%), compared to smaller agencies.
• Agencies with 100–499 FTE sworn personnel were more likely to offer extra overtime opportunities (82%), paid maternity leave (68%), paid paternity leave (63%), relaxed residency requirements (58%), and on-duty time allowance for fitness maintenance (36%) than agencies with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel.
• Nearly all agencies (95%) with 500 or more FTE sworn personnel offered Employee Assistance Programs compared to 25% of agencies with 24 or fewer FTE sworn personnel.

Conclusions

It would take many more pages than this article to document the reasons as to why police officers left their jobs. There are surveys from Pew and the US Department of Justice indicating that police officers are reluctant to make stops, and that there are millions fewer police contacts. We will have to wait for more recent data to see if those metrics have improved.

What this means is that cops are reluctant to engage, which may be the reason that arrests and crimes solved have plummeted.

Response times to civilian calls for service are often over an hour in some cities, which affects crime rates and totals. You can’t report a crime to a police officer who didn’t engage in a timely response.

Most law enforcement officers (and many police writers) attribute the loss of police personnel to the “defund the police” movement after a seemingly endless series of protests over police use of force. The recent ICE protests haven’t helped.

The narrative seems to be a sense of disrespect for the police profession based on the actions of a few officers who acted improperly or illegally. 

Police officers reasoned that if society or communities were willing to paint all cops based on the actions of a few, it counted as the same discrimination suffered by other groups.

As one resigning police officer said, “If you are willing to judge a group based on the actions of a few, you are capable of any form of race or sex discrimination.”

Families insisted that their police officer loved ones get out of the profession without delay.

Some will suggest that the number of police officers isn’t relevant because of the decrease in reported crime as offered by the FBI (while understanding that the majority of crime is not reported).

Per the USDOJ’s National Crime Victimization Survey, we are at record highs for rates, with the largest increase in violence in the nation’s history (44 percent). If you rely on crimes reported to law enforcement, there was a 3 percent decrease in violence in 2023 and a 4.5 percent decrease in 2024 (the last full report). Statistics for 2025 are available here, but preliminary FBI data are often substantially overstated. 

So based on National Crime Victimization Survey data, it’s more than possible that the loss of police officers carries more consequences than officers taking over an hour to respond to a victim’s crime complaint.