After years of shrinking numbers, the Cleveland Division of Police is finally seeing stability return to its ranks, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said, crediting a series of recruitment and retention reforms, according to Ideastream.org.
Central to that turnaround was a one-time 14% pay bump in 2023, followed by annual 3% raises under a new labor contract approved earlier this year. Under the agreement, top-level patrol officers are projected to earn more than $90,000 annually by 2027.
The city also relaxed long-standing restrictions on facial hair and tattoos and streamlined its hiring pipeline, moves Bibb said have helped drive a dramatic surge in interest. Since the rollout of his violent crime response plan — the Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone (RISE) initiative — enrollment in the police academy has climbed by 356% over the past two years.
“Before we made these changes, it took 18 months — 18 months — for someone to join the division of police. Now, we've cut the time to hire from 18 months to four months,” Bibb noted.
City data shows that just 55 cadets entered the academy across 2022 and 2023. That figure jumped sharply to 251 recruits during 2024 and 2025.
At present, the Cleveland Division of Police employs 1,254 uniformed personnel, a total that includes cadets.
Bibb said the city has also made significant progress in slowing the exodus of officers that plagued the department in recent years.
“We were facing a crisis in terms of folks leaving our department to go to suburban departments across the county and across the state,” Bibb said.
The division’s sworn strength exceeded 1,600 officers in early 2020, but retirements and resignations caused numbers to fall steeply in the years that followed. In 2022 and 2023 alone, 351 officers departed. That total dropped to 179 combined in 2024 and 2025.
According to Bibb, compensation wasn’t the only factor driving renewed interest. Department leaders have focused on making the force more appealing to younger recruits by modernizing workplace culture and policies.
“The changes around small things — particularly for millennials and the gen Z workforce — beards, tattoos, ball caps. That speaks to them being their authentic selves,” Bibb said.
City officials say those recruitment and retention gains, combined with strengthened law enforcement partnerships, are beginning to show results on the street. Cleveland has recorded a 16% drop in homicides and a 24% reduction in robberies so far this year.
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