Philadelphia Police Still Down 1,200 Officers: 'It's Going to Take Some Years of Momentum'

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Police Department has made only incremental progress in addressing a critical shortage of officers following a wave of retirements and resignations, and the police commissioner acknowledged Tuesday that it could take “years of momentum” for staffing levels to rebound.

The department is down about 1,200 officers from its full complement of 6,380 — about a 19% vacancy rate department-wide — according to Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, who took over the force last year and inherited an officer shortage that spiked during the pandemic and the racial justice movement in 2020.

He said despite several years of recruitment drives and policy shifts aimed at onboarding more cops and improving department morale, “the numbers are moving, but not moving well enough.”

“It’s going to take some years of momentum,” Bethel told City Council members Tuesday. “We cannot go back to a place where the police department is devalued, demoralized, and then say, ‘Why can’t we get people?‘”

The force’s staffing levels were one of several lines of questioning during the police department’s annual budget hearing in Council on Tuesday. The hearing is typically among the most high-profile events of the budget season, given Council members’ interest in public safety and the fact that the agency’s allocation of taxpayer dollars is the largest of any department.

This year, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is requesting an $872 million police budget, an amount that is roughly the same as last year’s allocation. About 95% of the budget goes to wages and benefits for employees, both uniformed and civilian.

While the department’s funding request went largely unchallenged, lawmakers questioned the force’s top brass on staffing, programming, and crime-fighting — everything from citywide strategies to individual cases. Several members wanted to know why ongoing recruitment efforts have not yielded more new officers, while other lawmakers peppered Bethel with questions about the use of technology like body-worn cameras and drones.

Council is currently in the midst of a series of budget hearings about individual departments and programs, which will continue through much of April, following Parker’s unveiling of her $6.7 billion budget proposal last month. Lawmakers will negotiate with Parker’s office through the spring amid uncertainties over federal funding and will look to reach a deal before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

How the Philly police shortage affects the department

The police department is requesting that Council approve about $350,000 in funding to support recruitment efforts and programs that expedite the hiring process. The agency is also estimating it will spend a record $150 million this fiscal year on overtime pay, which the force has increasingly relied on to make up for staffing shortages. That’s an increase of $25 million over last year.

Bethel said some improvements, including adjustments to the department’s testing regimen — like allowing officers to retake a reading test if they fail the first time — have contributed to improved hiring rates.

Last year, the department brought on more than 350 new officers, exceeding its target of 300. But the number did not match attrition, as hundreds of officers retired and resigned.

Police brass have cited the officer exodus as a problem since at least 2020, when recruitment plunged amid the pandemic and a nationwide racial justice movement that questioned the role of policing in society. It also coincided with a broader trend of municipal workers leaving their jobs in droves.

All told, fewer than 6,300 positions, both uniformed and civilian, are filled out of the 7,700 that the police department is allotted, according to the Parker administration’s budget papers.

The ongoing staff shortage affects units across the force, Bethel said. It has been a continuing issue in the 911 call center, which is staffed largely by civilians. And under questioning by members, Bethel cited officer vacancies as a reason that more detectives are not deployed to special investigations, such as cold cases.

“Every detective was a police officer,” Bethel said. “If I pull someone into the detective division, I lose an officer on the front line. And so we’re walking this balance. We’re gonna get there. But we have a few more years to go.”

Most Council members said they were sympathetic to the department as it works to improve staffing levels, and several praised Bethel. Council President Kenyatta Johnson said the department deserves credit amid a precipitous decline in shootings and homicides last year.

“It’s easy to always criticize and say what’s not happening,” Johnson said. “I see the crime has been cleaning up, I see homicides and shootings are down. I just think it’s something that we need to acknowledge and be straight up about.”

Philly police will triple their drones and deploy more body cameras

Also Tuesday, Bethel answered a series of questions from members about the department’s use of technology, including its nascent drone program, which is likely to expand.

City Councilmember Rue Landau, a Democrat who represents the city at-large, said she has corresponded with Bethel directly about the agency’s plans to increase its use of drone technology, saying that the force currently has nine drones and plans to purchase 18 more.

She expressed concern about where the funding is coming from: the Philadelphia Police Foundation, a nonprofit that operates outside the city’s purview and funds technology, equipment, and training for police. Landau described the foundation as operating “without Council oversight.”

But Bethel pushed back, saying the foundation “has been around for decades” and provides funding to police for programs that are not covered by the department’s small amount of discretionary funds.

As for the drone program more broadly, Bethel said the technology has been used to provide officers with a bird’s-eye view of major gatherings, such as sporting events. He said a drone was recently used during a large event in Center City to locate a child who got away from his mother.

Drones are also used from time to time in Kensington, he said, to provide officers with “situational awareness” amid the sprawling open-air drug market. He said drones can be used to scope out incidents before officers arrive so that cops “would not be walking into a violent situation because the drone would be able to show what’s going on around them.”

Bethel also addressed questions about the department’s decade-old effort to outfit officers with body-worn cameras, a point emphasized by Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke of the progressive Working Families Party. Every patrol officer already has a body camera, but O’Rourke said he is concerned that three small “specialized units,” including the Narcotics Strike Force, are yet to be outfitted.

Those officers will have body cameras by this summer, Bethel said.

_____

Visit inquirer.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.