2024 Saw Largest Exodus of Pittsburgh Police Officers in Past Decade

Three Pittsburgh police officers retired or resigned within the first week of 2025, an ominous start that follows a year in which the bureau of police saw its largest exodus in at least the past decade.

For a decade, the average combined number of retirements and resignations was roughly 64. In 2023, 101 officers retired or resigned. In 2024, that number was 105, according to Bob Swartzwelder, president of the union representing Pittsburgh police.

That total included 66 retirements and 35 resignations. It was the highest number of retirements in a single year since the union began keeping track in 2013, Mr. Swartzwelder said.

"The talent that we have has greater opportunities elsewhere," he said.

For several years, resignations and retirements have outpaced new hires in the bureau, and the new high-water mark comes amid continued frustrations and debate among city officials as to whether the bureau is properly staffed to serve the city.

Mr. Swartzwelder's answer to that question — whether the current 760 officers are enough, more than 100 of whom are on some type of leave — is rhetorical.

"Enough for what?" he said.

He claimed officers are being forced into overtime and days off are being canceled for the sake of large-scale city events.

"Staffing is regularly adjusted to ensure safety and security needs are met," said public safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz. "Some officers' schedules are modified as a proactive measure to manage specific operational needs."

Most recently, she said, 11 patrol officers and two supervisors had their off days canceled to staff the city's First Night celebration Dec. 31. That number could have been higher, she said, but for officers who volunteered to work the event.

Still, Mr. Swartzwelder accused the city of prioritizing special events over safety.

"The city's emphasis is not on public safety and frontline response," he said. "The city's emphasis is on parties and fun."

Ms. Cruz pointed to new efforts over the past year to boost recruitment and retention.

"These include the employment of a full-time recruitment officers, the introduction of a mentorship program, and the planned production of a recruitment video," she said. "The bureau also plans to hire a number of civilian positions where applicable."

The city's police numbers have long been dwindling. Pittsburgh has historically budgeted for a force of 900 officers, and the bureau hovered just below that — between about 850 and 890 — for much of the late 2000s and 2010s. By 2019, the bureau hit that 900-officer mark, and multiple recruit classes that year pushed the total to 991 in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic and calls for police reform in 2020 put a pause on new recruit classes, which meant no replacements for retiring or resigning officers were joining the ranks for two years. By the end of 2022, the city was down to about 830 officers. That fell to roughly 750 by the end of 2023. The group of 24 recruits who graduated in March were the first to join the bureau since 2021. A second recruit class graduated 15 members in June.

Since then, recruit classes have not kept pace with retirements and resignations. The bureau added three new recruit classes in 2024 — one of 12 recruits, another of 19 and a third class of 42 recruits started the training academy in November. Training for each class, however, takes nearly a year: 33 weeks of classroom training followed by 12 weeks of field training.

As of Monday, the bureau had 709 full-time officers with 49 in the training academy. Ms. Cruz said 16 recruits are expected complete their field training and graduate later this month, and two classes will start the academy this year.

Ms. Cruz noted that staffing shortages wrought by low recruitment and poor retention have plagued departments nationwide. Indeed, police union officials in New York pointed to a similar issue in their city earlier this year.

In July, New York's Police Benevolent Association estimated more than 14,000 officers had left the NYPD since the start of 2020, with less than 11,000 hired in their place. That included more than 1,100 retirements and nearly 400 resignations in the first half of 2024.

"The NYPD's staffing crisis hasn't improved because we are still losing cops faster than the job can replace them," Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said at the time. "Hiring a class of 600 recruits doesn't cut it when we lose more than double that amount in the six months it takes them to graduate from the academy."

As a whole, law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and Canada seemed to have turned a corner in terms of an exodus of officers that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest across the country in 2020.

The Police Executive Research Forum, a nonpartisan law enforcement research organization, surveyed 182 departments about their pandemic-era staffing levels compared to 2019. Taken all together, the departments saw more officer resignations each year from 2020 to 2022. Retirements rose in 2020 and 2020, according to the survey, before dropping slightly in 2022.

Some of those numbers improved, according to a follow-up survey conducted in 2023 and released in 2024. Resignations at the 214 agencies surveyed decreased in 2023 compared to previous years, as did retirements. New hires at those departments, too, rose compared to the year prior.

That rebound is not the case for every agency, including Pittsburgh. Other large city departments also continue to face falling personnel numbers. A report out of Cleveland last year showed that in the first eight months of 2024, 87 city police officers left the department, according to ABC5 in Cleveland. Nearly half were resignations.

In the U.K., law enforcement agencies in England and Wales saw a record number of officers leaving in the first quarter of 2024: More than 9,000 from Jan. 1 through March 31, according to The Telegraph. More than half resigned voluntarily.

Voluntary resignations during that time were the highest since comparable records began in 2003, the outlet reported.

A Rice University study looked at the retirements and resignations at 14 law enforcement agencies from 2020 to 2022, focusing on whether those numbers were higher in the years post- George Floyd than what would have been expected based on historical averages.

Although the study hinged on the civil unrest that followed Floyd's murder by police in 2020, the data itself gives an idea of what agencies smaller and larger than Pittsburgh have seen in recent years.

"Our analysis indicates that the police turnover crisis is real and has had a significant impact on law enforcement agencies," the authors wrote. They noted elsewhere in the report that individual context is important: "Large agencies might be expected to lose more officers in absolute terms, even while relatively smaller agencies are experiencing turnover effects more strongly."

Half of the 14 agencies studied saw above average increases in both retirements and resignations between 2020 and 2022. For example, the Wichita Police Department, which had an authorized strength of 709 in 2020, lost more than 7% through retirements and resignations. Omaha lost just under 4% of its 902 during that time, although much of that was made up of retirements as opposed to resignations.

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