Introduction
The police service faces a staffing challenge of diminished recruitment sources and high attrition rate raising serious questions on whether law enforcement can genuinely be expected to fulfill its bulging responsibilities. High attrition levels can be a good thing if a police department is replacing old officers with younger, more qualified and competent ones or when it loses poorly performing officers to more motivated ones (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . High attrition levels can , however, be quite pernicious if they occur in waves, a phenomenon compounded by the presence of a limited labor pool from which to source new officers. This has been the reality confronting a number of law enforcement agencies in the United States for a while now (Kearns, 2007) . A host of factors, including shifting generational preferences, military call-ups, organizational characteristics , and baby boom retirements have been invoked to explain this phenomenon. While these explanations hold considerable force, other factors such as the advent of social media that has occasioned increased attention on law enforcement practices also help explain this trend. Research, therefore, has to give attention to a wide of array of factors if responsive solutions are to be developed.
Background
Law enforcement in the United States has a faced a unique set of challenges in recent American history. In 1900, the need for greater professionalization was identified as the key issue plaguing the force. The Berkeley California police chief August Vollmer was one of the people to lead this effort between 1905 and 1932. He sought to have police officers attain an undergraduate education to raise personnel standard and, therefore, have law enforcement considered a profession like any other (McCollum, 1995) . This led to the emergence of a professionalization movement that sought to attain this goal.
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A similar emphasis was laid by the President’s 1967 Taskforce. In its report, the task force submitted that higher education was viewed as a function of complexity in performing police tasks. By the 1990s, the professionalization concerns had shifted to anxieties about the number of police nationwide (McCollum, 1995) . The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program was one of the most ambitious federal government crime initiatives of the time. Passed as part of the omnibus Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the COPS sought to increase by 100,000 the number of police officers in national communities. Again in 2009, Congress allocated $1billion to the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which is under the US Department of Justice, to aid its Hiring recovery program in a bid to stabilize police positions. COPS had, however, requested $8.3 billion to support over 39,000 positions it intended to create across the United States (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . These recent policy interventions demonstrate that the concern has now shifted firmly to the need for more police officers.
Police departments in many parts of the United States, in fact, continue to report staffing challenges, and a good number have reported a significant drop in the number of applications. While the 2008 recession might have mitigated the problem a little bit as unemployment led some to the police service (Kearns, 2007) , concerns still abound that improvement in economic conditions will mean reduced performance.
The extent of the problem was particularly pronounced in cities like New York City at the start of the century. The city witnessed a massive exodus of officers prompting the city to offer huge bonuses and incentives to encourage retention (Wilson, Shirley, Luthar, & Bridges, 2012) . A deficit of officers has also been witnessed in Chicago where early retirements from the police department have raised serious concerns about an under-deserved population (Wilson, Shirley, Luthar, & Bridges, 2012) . It is a challenge that has been exacerbated by the department having to await funds from the federal government. In Edmonton Alberta, the proportion of retiring officers increased from 10 to 20 percent between 2009 and 2014. In many instances, the challenge is expected to increase. A similar situation is now being witnessed in Macon Georgia, Vallejo California, and Boston amongst other American cities (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . While retirement challenges are not a peculiar police problem since similar trends have been witnessed in other fields, there is little doubt that the problem is more pronounced in the police department.
The challenge of an inadequate number of officers invariably puts tremendous pressure on police departments and even leads to suspicions that specific social sectors are neglected in policing. Therefore, while over-representation of law enforcement in an area may create friction, under-representation may also trigger disgruntlement (Wareham, Smith, & Eric, 2013) . The problem is exacerbated in case there is an underrepresentation of minorities in police departments. Any attempt to increase the efficacy and legitimacy of law enforcement in minority groups entails a realization that a significant number of this group is required in law enforcement (Cambareri & Kuhns, 2018) . However, recruiting from these segments may at times be difficult due to stereotypical attitudes towards law enforcement or absence of requisite competencies.
Literature Review
The cost related to hiring police officers and losing them prematurely has been well documented. Recruitment into law enforcement, notes Harr (2005), entails conducting background checks, polygraph tests, administering physical exams, and attending training which takes approximately six months. To recoup these costs in terms of officer contribution to the force is likely to take over three years. As Harr has rightly noted, the full productivity of a police officer takes a while even after recruitment as they become familiar with the nuances of work. Recruitment and retention are therefore important considerations for human resource personnel in law enforcement.
According to Raymond et al. (2005), recruitment and retention into the police service became complicated after the 9/11 attacks, which led to the redefinitions of police roles. The new department of homeland security required local law enforcement to coordinate with other agencies especially in intelligence gathering and sharing. This required joint exercises with other agencies. Furthermore, local law enforcement was now expected to engage in other activities such as disaster and emergency management (Williams, 2018) . A combination of these new needs led to significant turnover amongst incumbent officers. As Raymond explains, a dilemma emerged amongst incumbent officers on how to manage local needs and national requirement dictated by the Department of Homeland Security. These demands are often changing, unpredictable , and unsupported by adequate training and financial commitments. This lack of control, therefore, led to many experienced police officers pulling out of local law enforcement.
Policing is an inherently risky job. 9/11 and the subsequent declaration of war against terror, however, elevated the perception of this risk amongst law enforcement officials. As local law enforcement participation in terrorist security threats has increased, this sense of risk has dissuaded others from entry into or continued service. The massive public support for law enforcement officials in the aftermath of 9/11 failed, contrary to conventional wisdom, to attract a sizable number of competent applicants into public safety professions (Callender, Cahalin, Cole, Hubbard, & Britton, 2018) . Others examining these arguments , however, argue that we might have gone too far in our analysis and, therefore, missed the core reasons. To them, the challenge of attracting and keeping competent individuals in law enforcement is related to underlying issues of motivation and remuneration and broader generation shifts (Callender, Cahalin, Cole, Hubbard, & Britton, 2018) .
Changing generational preferences have reduced the pool from which to recruit and lowered retention levels. Due to the emergence of a wide range of careers, younger people are less committed than older ones to organizational life. According to Lynch and Tuckey (2004), this is one of the main reasons behind the high attrition rate within law enforcement departments countrywide. The shift towards a knowledge economy is transforming career trajectories and expectations even within law enforcement. Employees are now required to move between employers to gain newer forms of knowledge and expertise and, therefore, remain relevant to the economy. Since the role of law enforcement has broadened from the traditional areas of law enforcement and crime detection into other areas like emergency and rescue operations (Williams, 2018) , officers have themselves knowledge brokers and problem solvers (Kearns, 2007) . This constant need for updating competencies is associated with unmet expectations, increasing the likelihood of turnover. Younger professionals are also more mobile in this economy as they pursue better career opportunities and seek more fulfilling jobs. This phenomenon is especially bad for police departments since they invest considerable resources in recruitment and, therefore, require officers to work for a particular duration to get a return on investment.
Budget Crisis
One of the reasons behind labor mobility is the search for better-paying jobs. A police service with uncompetitive benefits and salaries is unlikely to attract or keep officers (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . However , many law enforcement agencies are plagued with an acute financial challenge that has effectively made them uncompetitive employers. San Diego and New Orleans policing challenges are emblematic of this challenge. After Hurricane Katrina and the economic devastation the disaster brought to the city, many officers moved to the Houston police department due to the considerably better remuneration there (Williams, 2018) . In the even worse case of San Diego, salary freezes and uncompetitive benefits led to a massive pull out of officers with even a 21-year detective seeking patrol work in neighboring Chula Vista (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) .
Hailing local economies are the greatest contributors to low police salaries and benefits. Economic downturns leave communities with meager public resources to cover costs and often drain even police allocations. The result has been hiring and salary freezes, cancellation of training programs, and even closure of police stations in extreme instances (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . In Prospect Heights Illinois, for instance, officials shut down the local station and assigned key officers to patrol shifts. Therefore, while some agencies may report a spike in hiring, others are too unattractive to attract competent candidates (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . Some agencies, to cope with budgetary constraints, offer early retirement to old and experienced officers and recruit younger officers for lesser pay (Wilson, Shirley, Luthar, & Bridges, 2012) . The result is not just lowered expertise in police departments but also increased rate of turn over since younger officers are more likely to move from job to job than older ones.
Military and Agency Call-Ups
The United States military and other agencies have in the past acted as major leaks from the police departments. It is no secret that many police officers join law enforcement as a springboard to other jobs with, for instance, the military and entities like the FBI. Police officers also serve as reservists who might be called upon in case there are military needs. In the Afghanistan and Iraq war, up to three officers in every police department were called upon to serve as full times reservists in the military. Such measures not only drain departments of the vital workforce but also encourage officers to seek positions in other entities are the benefits become more manifest with their colleagues (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . Additionally, these call-ups cause fiscal constraints since federal law requires the officers’ benefits are continued until their return.
Organizational Characteristics
The nature of an organization influences the chances of getting workers and retaining them. This holds even for police departments. To this extent, the character of the immediate supervisor, career growth prospects, unrealized job expectations, the absence of recognition, proper training, and adequate feedback systems are all organizational features that influence hiring and retention of police officers (Callender, Cahalin, Cole, Hubbard, & Britton, 2018) . Unfortunately, these are not considerations that have received adequate attention in police departments. The prevailing notion is that policing is a calling and , therefore, these other considerations are secondary. For this reason, most police departments lack elaborate human resource personnel to handle officers’ human resource needs. The result is neglect of otherwise vital considerations that invariably impact retention levels.
Baby Boom Retirements
Waves of withdrawal from law enforcement often cause a crisis since replacement levels often cannot cover the left gap. Full police training takes time and even more time is required for trained personnel to be competent in their field. The retirement of baby boom generation officers has been one of the major cause of mass exist from law enforcement (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . As the number of those eligible for retirement has increased, the replacement has become quite problematic compelling authorities to issue various incentives to encourage prolonged service. This problem has been particularly conspicuous in major cities like New York and Chicago that had hired scores of officers from this generation (Ibid).
The threat of retirements affects not just the number of officers but also the ability of local and city authorities to hire more officers. This is because, in the face of economic downturn, retirements mean financial strain in the form of pension payments. Economic downturns precipitate applications for early retirement as older people attempt to avoid the anguish of hard economic times. The trend is by no means limited to the police service (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . Other fields are experiencing retirements of older workers , and, therefore, there is a clamor for workers. This leads to increased competition for workers in the marketplace. Most police departments often cannot afford the benefits offered in the market especially those provided by private sector entities. The result is that departments have to settle for under-qualified persons or in certain circumstances cannot fill vacant posts. Ill-qualified persons exacerbate the recruitment challenge since they often create a negative image for law enforcement upon recruitment, which dissuades others from entering law enforcement (Cambareri & Kuhns, 2018) . This reality is at odds with what has previously been reported by the Bureau of Statistics that baby boomers are willing to put in more hours as opposed to going on retirement and that there has been an influx of young people into the job market.
The effect of economic conditions, however, affects younger people differently. In times of economic prosperity, numerous opportunities pull them away from policing work since they can get better salaries and work quite easily. In times of economic hardships, officers are less likely to abandon their jobs due to job security considerations, and spikes in job applications to the department are likely to be witnessed. Departments, however, are more likely to lay off employees due to budget cuts (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . In the wake of the economic recovery after the 2008 financial crisis, the police department is faced with a shortage attributable to opportunities created in other sectors of the economy.
Qualification
The generation replacing the baby boomers is not just smaller but also has more difficulties qualifying to join the service. Cohorts of young people find it difficult to meet minimum qualifications like a clean criminal record, good health, little history of drug use, and general financial stability. A number of statistics help explain the origins of this problem. Nearly half of 12 th graders are reported to have smoked marijuana while one in four of 12 th graders has used other drugs other than marijuana. In general, drug use is reported to be more prevalent now than it was in the 1990s (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . The obesity rate is also a major problem in the United States. It is estimated that the number of obese adolescents has more than doubled in the twenty years, and has more than tripled in the case of children. Credit card debt has also skyrocketed amongst Americans between 18 and 24 years since the 1990s to an average of 3,000 dollars per person. The average American youth spends 30% of their income on repayment of debt (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) . Draut (2008), points out that the current young generation, which police departments tap into for recruits, is in much deeper debt than younger generations of previous decades.
The expansion of the security industrial complex especially since the 9/11 attacks has intensified competition for workers in the security sector. Federal and state agencies, the military, private security firms, and first responder bodies recruit from the same pool as police departments. Enlistments into the military, notes Kanes (2005), have increased amongst the most educated young people. The greater the benefits public and private security agencies can offer to their employees, the greater the competition local police have to contend with. This is a particularly important issue since most agencies have developed incentive systems to attract workers such as the issuance of bonuses, mortgage discount programs, and health club memberships which local police departments are unable to offer (Wilson, Shirley, Luthar, & Bridges, 2012) . To adapt, police departments are being forced to recruit from miles away. The Arlington Police Department, for instance, has undertaken recruitment missions as far away as Puerto Rico, though with limited success (Wilson, Dalton, & Scheer, 2010) .
The difficulties of recruitment and retention must also be seen within the context of technological changes that have taken place in the past two to three decades. As information technology has advanced, so has scrutiny on the police service. While law enforcement agencies have used technological tools to enhance their investigative work and thus prevented crime, they have also been impacted by them. Increasingly, police conduct is canvassed on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook with much of the backlash against police brutality first starting on these platforms. Shootings and arrests have been captured on camera and broadcasted to the world triggering massive public uproar. Overall, the police image has been dented by social media more than it has improved (Helldorfer, 2016) . The killing of black teenagers in the hands of law enforcement has served to reinforce negative perceptions of police officers. With a soiled reputation, the desire to join the police has declined significantly especially amongst minority groups who are so crucial in policing minority areas. While police departments have used these same platforms to broadcast to the world their work and achievements in an attempt to win public confidence and transform public attitudes, this has come with limited success. Hostility towards law enforcement especially amongst minority groups remains a pervasive problem in the United States.
The clamor for change triggered by revelations made through social media has led to a series of reforms that have dissuaded entry into or continued police service. Few officers are comfortable with putting on body cameras or being subjected to constant internal reviews of their conduct. In a bid to correct police brutality, therefore, the inadvertent effect has been to strain recruitment and encourage withdrawal from local law enforcement.
Theory
For this research, the Job Embeddedness Model and Herzberg’s two-factor theory are utilized in a bid to understand the recruitment and retention challenges being faced by local police departments across the country.
The Job Embeddedness Model, developed by Mitchell (2001), is based on the seminal Kurt Lewin’s field theory and embedded figures psychological model. According to field theory, human interactions are impacted by distal and proximal connections in their life. Embedded figures are the figures that seem to attach on the background such that detaching is difficult. Mitchell (2001) explains that embeddedness refers to a net or web in which an individual becomes stuck. Within an organizational context, it denotes the connections that employees develop within an organization such that leaving becomes difficult. Mitchell cites three dimensions of this embeddedness construct.
The first is organizational fit, which refers to the harmony between employee personal values and organizational goals and how the former’s knowledge and abilities enhance this compatibility. The more the compatibility, the more the fit. Organizational fit is essential in recruitment and retention of employees. Indeed, increasing organizational fit will decrease turnover and voluntary quit. The second dimension, organizational links, relates to the extent to which employees connect and engage in an organizational activity (Nguyen, 2012) . According to this model, these links form the strands of the web. The stronger the links, it is contended, the more embedded the employee is. Organizational sacrifice is the last dimension. It indicates the tangible or intangible benefits that employees lose in case they decide to leave. Tangible benefits include bonus and pension package while the intangible benefits denote seniority and the opportunity to work with colleagues. This dimension, therefore, relates to the psychological and financial loss associated with departure (Nguyen, 2012) . The importance of these dimensions will , however, vary from employee to employee based on life goal, financial status among other factors.
The value of this framework is that unlike other models that pay emphasis mostly on employee perception and attitude, embeddedness pays focus on organizational and community aspects that management has a sizable influence on. Furthermore, it puts to account non-work factors like community and religious activities. It also incorporates the novel concepts found in management literature such as project groups, teamwork, and work connections.
Herzberg’s Two Factors Theory
This theory offers the framework for understanding the considerations that motivate or dissatisfy employees and, therefore, influencing retention and turn over. Based on extensive research carried on over 200 employees, Herzberg concluded that there are two categories of factors- Hygiene and Motivators- that influence performance. Hygiene factors include company policies, employment relations, job security, and working conditions. Though these factors are not motivators, they influence dissatisfaction. Motivators, on the other hand, such as recognition, growth opportunities, and job responsibility help improve performance and increase levels of employee satisfaction (Nguyen, 2012) . In brief, Herzberg’s two-factor theory is important in understanding what causes dissatisfaction among employees leading to retention challenges.
Data and Method
The target population was senior students studying criminal justice in New York State University. In specific, the sample was gotten from students currently attending the program in their final year. Armed with a list of current students from the criminology department, the list of potential respondents was narrowed down to 300 criminology majors. An assumption is made that criminology majors are more likely to want to join law enforcement.
A survey of 25 questions is distributed to students. Prior to taking the survey, students are informed that they are to answer questioning pertaining to their knowledge about the attitude towards the New York’s Police Department and that their responses would be important in guiding future recruitment efforts. Respondents were advised to answer questions about their exposure to potential employers, on whether the university offered any form of assistance in seeking employment, their personal and career goals as well as their attitudes towards law enforcement. Professors within the department of criminology supplied various survey instruments that had been previously used, which informed the model of the current survey. Survey details were also given to a committee of students, which tested it for content and clarity before administration.
Two weeks after the survey was sent to the respondents, a follow-up email was sent in a bid to increase the response rate. An additional email was sent after one week to previously contacted professors within the criminology department requesting them to remind the respondents on the survey personally. The survey came to a close three and a half weeks after it was started. The overall response rate stood at 29.4%. This is not far off from the 33% that is reported as the average response rate for online surveys. All the data was then converted from Survey Monkey into Excel format. Cleaning was done, and the data entered into analysis software. In specific, a codebook for the dataset was formed, and SPSS software was used for analysis.
Analysis
To carry out statistical analysis, several variables were chosen based on the research questions. These variables were the gender of the respondent, interest in law enforcement, awareness of New York’s Police Department, potential reasons for not wanting to work for NYPD and respondent’s knowledge of the hiring process. Gender is the independent variable while the dependent variables were all the other considerations. An attempt is made to establish the difference in responses more so between male and female respondents. The reason for gender being chosen as the only independent variable is because there was no other significant demographic variation within the study: marital status, race or age were all nearly the same.
Aware about NYPD was the first dependent variable. Respondents were given three multiple choices: none 1 very little 2. Some 3 a lot 4. To better test the variable statistically, the respondents were recorded to be dichotomous. Half of the respondents indicated that they were minimal knowledge of NYPD and its recruitment while the other half indicated that they had some knowledge. It is important to underscore that this question was only asked to those who had mentioned they had interest in pursuing a law enforcement career.
With respect to the other dependent variable on interest in working within law enforcement, 85% indicated they had such interest while the other 15% stated they had no interest. The next question was answered by the 15% that indicated they had little interest to work in law enforcement. The respondents were asked to explain whether this was because they had no interest in working for law enforcement, did not meet the qualification criteria, lacked adequate information, were still unsure or because they were planning to move from New York upon graduation. All responses entailing they planned to move and they did not wish to work for a law enforcement agency were categorized as not interested. Nearly half of the respondents (47.5%) indicated they had no intention of working for a law enforcement agency.
On whether they thought law enforcement ought to be more involved seeking employee, nearly two thirds (62.5%) felt that law enforcement ought to be more engaged in career fairs conducted in universities. Based on the bivariate analysis conducted, a majority of students were willing to undertake careers in law enforcement. Those that remained indecisive, it is partly due to the scanty information available for effective decision making. Law enforcement, therefore, ought to engage in more active recruitment and publicization of the opportunities it offers just like other recruiting agencies to increase awareness amongst prospective recruits. The bigger challenge, therefore, would appear not to be in recruitment but retention of workers. There is a, however, the great similarity between the reasons that prevent people from joining law enforcement and those that make them exit rather prematurely.
Conclusion
Recruitment and retention of police officers is a novel challenge in the United States that is attributable to multiple factors that function in mutually reinforcing ways. The social media revolution, while offering police departments opportunities to promote themselves in the eyes of the public, has brought law enforcement under greater scrutiny often with devastating impact to their reputation and, therefore, dissuading potential candidates from entering the department. The baby boom retirement and expansion of police responsibilities in the aftermath of 9/11 have all contributed to an increased turn over with state and local police departments. Competition for workforce between various security agencies in public and private sector has also denied police departments a secure pool to recruit from since they typically are unable to offer comparatively better terms. Inability to provide competitive terms is especially compounded during economic downturns. Ironically, in times of better economic fortunes, potential recruits and active officers are drawn into other sectors of the economy that tend to offer better benefits. It is also contended that the recruitment and retention challenge must be seen within the context of broader shifts in generational interests.
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