Philadelphia Lifts Residency Requirement for Police Officers

Philadelphia has lifted a rule that requires police recruits to live in the city for a year before applying, ending a practice that has been in place since 2020 and was aimed at diversifying the force.

The change also applies to correctional officers and comes as both the Police Department and the city jails are facing critical staffing shortages.

While the police force is authorized to have 6,380 officers on its payroll, it's struggled to fill about 400 vacancies, and more than 560 officers are off duty on injury claims. Meanwhile, the Prisons Department is down hundreds of correctional officers, who have quit their jobs in droves amid what some called a safety crisis inside the jails.

Mayor Jim Kenney said last week during a briefing on the city's response to gun violence that the rule was hampering the Police Department's ability to recruit.

"It's basically like saying you can only play for the Phillies if you grew up in Philadelphia," he said. "It's not the normal situation around the country."

The residency requirement was in place for about 50 years until 2008, when City Council passed legislation to lift it. Then in 2020 — just weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a nationwide reckoning over race and policing — Council leaders backed a plan to reinstate it, saying "the idea that the city cannot recruit from within and find a ready, willing and able pool of police recruits is repugnant."

The bill passed Council 16-1, with district Councilmember Brian O'Neill the only to vote against it. Kenney didn't sign the legislation and it lapsed into law.

The 2020 law allows for the Civil Service Commission to grant exceptions to the residency requirement if the administration requests a waiver. City spokesperson Kevin Lessard said Kenney asked for the waiver last week to improve the Police Department's ability to recruit.

Now, a new police officer or correctional officer who lives outside the city when they are hired has a year to move to Philadelphia. Police officers who serve for more than five years may also move outside the city.

John McNesby, president of the the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said in a statement that the union from the beginning opposed "this silly residency requirement for new recruits."

"Clearly, our political leadership felt otherwise," he said. "And now during a violent-crime crisis, we're lifting the residency requirement, which we hope will help the police department in its recruitment efforts."

Inquirer staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.

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