Communities get the police department they deserve. It takes years to hire and train a single police officer. These aren't Amazon warehouse jobs. There are cities around the country that are in dire straits regarding hiring, short thousands.
Indiana is not immune. When I started, IMPD, Carmel, etc, were goal agencies to get hired by. Those agencies were typically flush with applications to select the best and brightest. Rare were lateral hires from other departments (why bother when you could hire and train someone your way from the beginning), and usually you needed a connection.
ILEA keeps a list of hiring agencies on their website. There would be a handful of agencies listed previously. Just looked, over 50 today.
Starting salaries are in the $60k range currently for some (definitely not all) and departments cant fill those jobs. As a taxpayer, how high are you willing to go?
Money won't solve the problem though, I know numerous officers who have left larger departments for smaller, lower paying agencies because of working conditions. That was unheard of to me 10 years ago, save for a few unique situations.
Bravo to someone trying to come up with an outside the box solution. It is 100% a communities right to reject it, but they end up with the police department they deserve.
Indiana is not immune. When I started, IMPD, Carmel, etc, were goal agencies to get hired by. Those agencies were typically flush with applications to select the best and brightest. Rare were lateral hires from other departments (why bother when you could hire and train someone your way from the beginning), and usually you needed a connection.
ILEA keeps a list of hiring agencies on their website. There would be a handful of agencies listed previously. Just looked, over 50 today.
Starting salaries are in the $60k range currently for some (definitely not all) and departments cant fill those jobs. As a taxpayer, how high are you willing to go?
Money won't solve the problem though, I know numerous officers who have left larger departments for smaller, lower paying agencies because of working conditions. That was unheard of to me 10 years ago, save for a few unique situations.
Bravo to someone trying to come up with an outside the box solution. It is 100% a communities right to reject it, but they end up with the police department they deserve.