Over the last few years, we at Dolan Consulting Group have published an article early in the year focused on the topic of negligent hiring liability in law enforcement. We do this because the issue of negligent hiring is so fundamental to every other aspect of law enforcement operations in the near future and in the long term.

Unfortunately, year after year, the causes for concern in this area have not diminished and, in some respects, have only grown. More and more of the conversations we have with law enforcement leaders across the country involve their concerns about their agencies lowering standards in order to hire “warm bodies,” and new cautionary case studies in this area continue to emerge with disturbing regularity. Sadly, once again, it seems that an updated article on this crucial topic is necessary.

Even more striking than the negligent hiring decisions of individual agency leaders are the recommendations made by the Department of Justice in its report on “Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency”, published in October of 2023.[i] Immediately following the report’s Introduction section, the DOJ report recommends that law enforcement agencies “modernize eligibility requirements.”[ii] This creative framing does not effectively disguise the thrust of the DOJ report’s recommendation—lower standards and find “warm bodies.” 

While the authors of the DOJ report repeatedly insist that their recommendations do not amount to the lowering of hiring standards, it is hard to conceive of a reasonable explanation of how the DOJ report does not recommend precisely that—lower standards of character, competence, and integrity at a time when the law enforcement profession’s reputation must be protected from the damage incurred by those unqualified to wear a badge.

The DOJ report recommends the following:

Participants at the convening identified the usefulness and supported the development of a national standard for police hiring developed by accrediting bodies. They also recommended that agencies consider their current eligibility requirements, highlighting those that cannot be compromised, those that can be updated, and those others that should be added. Some stressed incorporating “room for redemption,” recognizing that brain function is not fully developed until early adulthood and that recruits may have made minor unwise decisions in their younger years that affect their hiring eligibility now….[iii]

Examples of potential items that participants identified for consideration include… considering adjustments around drug use to account for time passed and/or changes in law; assessing the need for spelling tests or other written examinations…reconsidering flat bars based on minor, isolated criminal offenses, especially where offenses occurred a long time ago; evaluating the importance of financial history and credit scores; and adapting physical fitness standards, such as distance running.[iv]  

These statements clearly encourage lowering standards pertaining to drug abuse, criminal histories, written examinations intended to measure basic literacy and reading comprehension, and physical fitness. There is also the mention of making exceptions for incidents occurring prior to “fully developed” brain function, a timeframe which is notably undefined. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the brain finishes developing and maturing in one’s late twenties.[v] So does this mean that law enforcement agencies should overlook criminal offenses and character issues the applicant committed throughout his or her twenties?

While there are undoubtedly agencies with eligibility requirements that should be revaluated—such as those pertaining to maximum age limits, college credit hours attained or other requirements which seem to bear little or no relationship to an applicant’s character, competence, or integrity—the eligibility items highlighted by the DOJ report send the message that now is the time to lower standards, hire “warm bodies,” and deal with the fallout later. Law enforcement leaders should follow their ethical compasses and apply common sense. They should look to their own experiences with this type of short-sighted and unethical thinking in their agencies, as well as the history of modern American policing in rejecting it.

The DOJ report comes at a time when more and more law enforcement agencies are confronted with pressures to hire officers as quickly as possible and generate recruit classes that are more diverse. Leaders will inevitably face the temptation to cut corners and ignore red flags to get “boots on the ground.” These increasing pressures may regrettably mean that those boots are not filled with qualified men and women who demonstrate the character traits and competencies necessary to successfully serve their communities. Making these short-term fixes even more appealing are their delayed consequences–bad hires may not become public safety, legal liability, or public trust disasters for months or years. Short-term thinking could motivate hiring decisions that will fill the ranks today, but make for negative headlines and lawsuits for years to come.

At this moment, the law enforcement profession, and the citizens who depend on it, need agency leaders to meet the ethical challenge of resisting the temptation to hire unqualified applicants. In the long run, these applicants have the potential to inflict tremendous damage on agencies, the profession, and the communities that these agencies serve. 

The last thing that officers and citizens need now is unqualified applicants hired into the law enforcement field who will ultimately bring disrepute to the profession, rather than further the mission to protect and serve. By learning from the mistakes of the past, being wary of common hiring pitfalls and understanding the long-term impact of negligent hiring practices, agency leaders can uphold their integrity and that of the profession without contributing to the detriment of their agencies and communities.

Emphasizing Quality Over Quantity

Fortunately, in recent months, we have also seen agency leaders defending small recruit classes when they believe that quality is being preserved at the sake of quantity. In Cleveland, a December 2023 recruit class numbering just nine new officers was defended by the then-director of public safety along these lines of quality focus over quantity focus. Public Safety Director Karrie Howard told a local news outlet, “Those nine people are going to be worth, I don’t know, twenty-seven lackluster. We have nine quality superstars that graduated the academy.”[vi]   

In Tulsa, facing similar recruiting and staffing challenges, the police chief told a local news outlet in November of 2023 that “I could fill an academy class if I wanted, but I would be pushing lower-quality people through, and I just won’t do that.”[vii]

These are only two examples of what is hopefully a more broadly held belief—that lowering standards and hiring officers in a way that proves negligent is not making things better, but making them immeasurably worse for departments and the communities that they serve.

A patrol captain at a sheriff’s office recently told me that his agency was authorized for 150 sworn deputies, but was currently staffed at only 125. “I begged the Sheriff,” the captain said, “Just give me five workers and we’ll be good. Please don’t give me five workers and five problems, because then we’re back to square one. I don’t need somebody hiding behind a grocery store on their phone, or pissing people off for no reason. Just give me five workers and no new problems and we’ll be good to go.”

What that captain was talking about is a very common math equation that police leaders sometimes struggle to effectively communicate to those who are understandably eager to see the number of officers increase. Hiring “minor league” problem officers leads to lost time and proactivity, as officers and sergeants put out the fires that are set in the form of demeanor complaints, sloppy report writing, and various “professional backer-upper” activities. Hiring “major league” problem officers can lead to disastrous outcomes, as appears to have been true in so many cases like the Memphis SCORPION Unit, the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force, the Miami River Cops, and countless other tragic examples of negligent hiring over the years. As that sheriff’s office captain explained, an agency cannot afford to hire problems that get in the way of its good workers.

The Negligent Hiring “Doom Loop”

The term “doom loop” has garnered some attention in recent years as a way of describing urban decay that seems to get worse and worse, as less safety means less business and less public finances for safety, which means less business, and so on.

The credit for coining this term in reference to urban decay seems to belong to Columbia Business School professor Dr. Stijn Van Niuwerburgh. In a 2023 New York Times article, Dr. Niuwerburgh summarized what was meant by the term “doom loop.”

People with money…move out, taking their tax dollars and retail spending with them…leaving empty storefronts… Crime and grime increase. More people feel unsafe and leave… More crime, more grime, more cuts in services.[viii]

What Dr. Van Nieuwerburgh is describing is similar in many ways to the urban decay that occurred in many American cities in the 1960s and 1970s, when many cities across the country saw that the worse things got, the worse things got. The less livable a city becomes, the more difficult it is to reverse the trend. In policing, there is a strikingly similar phenomenon in terms of lowering hiring standards. 

What the recent DOJ report seems to invite law enforcement leaders to engage in may prove to be a similar kind of “doom loop”. In this Negligent Hiring “Doom Loop,” law enforcement leaders justify lowering standards and cutting corners on background investigations because they are desperate to find applicants. This leads to hiring people who do not have the character, competency, and integrity to serve honorably as officers. These individuals, who should not have been hired, engage in misconduct. That misconduct lowers public trust in the agency, harms morale, and makes the agency even less attractive to qualified applicants who are all the more likely to look elsewhere for employment in the future. Now, it is once again tempting to lower standards even further since, as at the beginning of the Negligent Hiring “Doom Loop,” agency leaders are more desperate than ever to find applicants. 

And the damage is not just to the community’s trust in an agency, but also to morale within the agency. Good officers don’t want to work with individuals who were clearly hired under a lower standard, and good candidates don’t want to apply to an agency where people are hired and deployed without proper vetting. This is born out of the frequency with which police union leaders have publicly cautioned against lower standards, presumably on behalf of the vast majority of their membership that believes in hiring people who are assets and not liabilities.

We would urge law enforcement leaders to fight the temptation to lower standards. This mistake may be rationalized away as a temporary fix or a necessary evil. But the available case studies demonstrate that these are rarely temporary fixes and the evil that they invite is never necessary.

About the Author

Matt Dolan, J.D.

Matt Dolan is a licensed attorney who specializes in training and advising public safety agencies in matters of legal liability, risk management and ethical leadership.  His training focuses on helping agency leaders create ethically and legally sound policies and procedures as a proactive means of minimizing liability and maximizing agency effectiveness.  

A member of a law enforcement family dating back three generations, he serves as both Director and Public Safety Instructor with Dolan Consulting Group. 

His training courses include Internal Affairs Investigations: Legal Liability and Best Practices, Supervisor Liability for Law Enforcement, Recruiting and Hiring for Law Enforcement, Confronting the Toxic Officer, Performance Evaluations for Public Safety and Confronting Bias in Law Enforcement.

 

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to constitute legal advice on a specific case.  The information herein is presented for informational purposes only.  Individual legal cases should be referred to proper legal counsel.

 

 

References

---

[i] Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency: Revised (Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,

2023).

[ii] BJA and COPS, Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency, 3-4.

[iii] BJA and COPS, Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency, 4.

[iv] BJA and COPS, Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency, 4.

[v] Mariam Arain, Maliha Haque, Lina Johal, Puja Mathur, Wynand Nel, Afsha Rais, Ranbir Sandhu, and Sushil Sharma. “Maturation of the adolescent brain,” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (2013): 449-461.

[vi] Neil Fischer, “City of Cleveland Hosts Hiring Event for Police Department; Latest Academy Class Brings in Just 9 Officers,” WKYC News, December 6, 2023. Accessed on 03/03/2024 at: https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/cleveland-hiring-event-police-department-latest-academy-class-9-officers/95-a19f1b91-ed6f-4b05-91ee-858d9a044abf

[vii] Brad Krehbiel, “Tulsa Police Will ‘Hold Fast’ on Standards Chief Says Despite Chronic Recruiting Difficulties,” Tulsa World, December 12, 2023. Accessed on 03/03/2024 at:

[viii] John Leland, “The Prophet of Urban Doom Says New York Still Has a Chance,” New York Times, February 8, 2023. Accessed on 02/18/2024 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/nyregion/doom-loop-remote-work-pandemic-nyc.html.

On September 28, after a much-publicized move away from a long-held unwritten dress code on the U.S. Senate floor, a bipartisan reaction resulted in the unanimous passage of a formal dress code.  Over the course of the preceding days, some Senators had signaled support for allowing casual attire on the Senate floor, prompted, in large part, by Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania who argued that he was more comfortable wearing shorts and a hoodie than a suit and tie.

On September 18—just 10 days before the Senate unanimously adopted a formal dress code—the Associated Press reported on Senator Fetterman’s reaction to those critical of his casual attire: “They’re freaking out, I don’t understand it,” he said.  “Like, aren’t there more important things we should be working on right now instead of, you know, that I might be dressing like a slob?”

In the end, both sides of the political divide decided that it does matter if a Senator “dresses like a slob” when casting votes that impact the functioning of the U.S. government—even if it risked his discomfort at the confines of business attire.

So, what does this story from the U.S. Senate have to do with cops?  Well, for years now, I have made no secret of my concern that too many departments have opted to prioritize officer comfort, self-expression and other concerns above a professional appearance.  The arguments expressed by Senator Fetterman are eerily similar to the push back I’ve received as the old-school police chief in the room concerned about what I refer to as “cops wearing their pajamas to work.”

These arguments from law enforcement officers in favor of more casual attire generally fall into the category of, as Senator Fetterman argued, “Aren’t there more important things we should be working on?”  The cop version of the argument is often more like, “People don’t care what I look like, as long as I can do the job.”  Or, even more important to contend with is the argument, “If I have to go hands-on with somebody, I need to be comfortable and ready to go.”  Let’s address these two arguments.

 

“People Don’t Care What I Look Like as Long as I can Do the Job”

I often ask officers, “What did you wear to your job interview with your police department?  Did you dress comfortably and casually?”  Inevitably, the answer is something to the effect of “No, I wore a suit and tie” for male officers, or “No, I wore a business suit” for female officers.  I always then respond by asking, “Why did you wear professional attire to your job interview? Was it because you wanted to make a good impression?”  They inevitably nod yes.  “So, what changed? When did you stop caring about giving a good impression by your attire?”

To put this in a different context, if you had to appear in court and the prosecutor was wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt, would you care?  After all, the prosecutor has more important things to worry about than attire.  Maybe their causal dress is a sign that they are so consumed with preparation for the case in which your testifying that they didn’t have time to worry about dressing professionally?  Of course, that would not be your immediate impression—it would be the opposite.  You would likely think, “Who is this clown? He comes to court in sweats? We are screwed.”  Similarly, stories of police applicants coming to their interview in casual attire is often cited by officers illustrating the problems they encounter in finding qualified candidates with common sense these days.

The same would likely be true of a priest or pastor officiating your wedding or the funeral director overseeing the ceremony for a passed loved one. In the most important moments of our lives, the vast majority of us want to put our trust in people who look professional and trustworthy.  That is precisely what members of the public want from their police.

In their time of need, citizens want to see a police officer who looks like a police officer.  Your professional appearance signals to citizens that you take enough pride in your work to look the part—and if you don’t care enough to look professional, why should they expect professionalism from you in your work?

You want to be able to quickly and clearly communicate to the public, especially during times of stress and confusion, your authority and legitimacy.  Beyond the increased effectiveness in verbal communication that comes with “looking the part”, there are physical dangers associated with law enforcement officers who are not clearly recognizable as such, particularly in a society filled with law-abiding citizens who are lawfully carrying firearms.

“If I Have to Go Hands On, I Need to be Comfortable and Ready to Go”

I am not arguing that every department needs to maintain the Raleigh Police Department appearance standards that I was introduced to in 1981—dress slacks, dress shoes, garrison hat, and a tie.  Law enforcement leaders have to make their own decisions as to the practicality of various uniform choices.  However, even within the context of reasonable disagreements about uniform details, we should all agree that an officer’s dress should make them readily identifiable as a real police officer.

But as for officer safety when having to use physical force, how does a baseball cap improve one’s defensive tactics capabilities, much less a baseball cap flipped backwards?  Can someone please explain to me how wearing an untucked tee shirt makes you a better fighter?  In fact, I would argue such attire makes it harder for an officer to reach his or her weapons or handcuff in a scuffle.  Lastly, can someone please explain to me how wearing a clean and ironed police uniform makes it harder for you to defend yourself?

A professional uniform appearance is a critical tool for law enforcement officers to convey their professionalism and authority right out of the gate, thus often reducing the necessity of the use of force in the first place.  A recent research studies conducted in California and Maine showed members of the public photographs of police officers with various types of uniform accessories. When the officers were shown wearing military style uniforms, especially BDU-style uniforms and load-bearing vests or external body armor, members of the public rated them lower in approachability, friendliness, and honesty, and higher in aggressiveness, hostility, and dishonesty.^[i]  Why would any law enforcement officer want to enter a police-citizen encounter with the psychological cards already stacked against him or her? 

 

Conclusion

There are many occupations in which your appearance simply does not matter.  Millions of people work remotely from their homes, or in offices where they are guaranteed to never see a customer.  In these environments there is a strong argument to be made that professional attire is simply unnecessary.  Similarly, when a Senator is taking phone calls, or being briefed on upcoming votes on a Sunday evening from their home office, appearance seems largely unimportant.  But when a member of the Senate walks onto the floor in Capital Hill to debate, discuss, or vote on matters that will affect the lives of millions of Americans, people on both sides of the political divide justifiably view shorts and a sweatshirt as a blatant sign of disrespect.  More precisely, it is a sign that my comfort is more important than any respect I may owe the task at hand or the voters that I represent.

Just as cops across the country see the short-lived mess in the Senate as an embarrassment, we should also regard it as a reminder that “looking the part” and projecting legitimacy and respect with how we dress still matters in the communities where we protect and serve.

 

About the Author

Harry P. Dolan is a 32-year police veteran who served as a Chief of Police since 1987. As one of the nation’s most experienced police chiefs, he brings 25 years of public safety executive experience to Dolan Consulting Group. He retired in October 2012 as Chief of Police of the Raleigh (N.C.) Police Department, an agency comprised of nearly 900 employees in America’s 42nd largest city.

Chief Dolan began his law enforcement career in 1980 as a deputy sheriff in Asheville, North Carolina and served there until early 1982, when he joined the Raleigh Police Department, where he served as a patrol officer. In 1987, he was appointed Chief of Police for the N.C. Department of Human Resources Police Department, located in Black Mountain. He served as Chief of Police in Lumberton, N.C. from 1992 until 1998, when he became Chief of Police of the Grand Rapids, Michigan Police Department. He served in that capacity for nearly ten years before becoming Chief of the Raleigh Police Department in September 2007. As Chief, he raised the bar at every organization and left each in a better position to both achieve and sustain success.

Harry Dolan has lectured throughout the United States and has trained thousands of public safety professionals in the fields of Leadership & Management, Communications Skills, and Community Policing. Past participants have consistently described Chief Dolan’s presentations as career changing, characterized by his sense of humor and unique ability to maintain participants’ interest throughout his training sessions. Chief Dolan’s demonstrated ability to connect with his clientele and deliver insightful instruction all with uncompromising principles will be of tremendous value in the private sector.

Chief Dolan’s unbridled passion to achieve service-excellence is a driving force behind Dolan Consulting Group. He is a graduate of Western Carolina University and holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership and Management from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

His training courses include Verbal De-escalation Training: Surviving Verbal Conflict®, Verbal De-escalation Train The Trainer Program: Surviving Verbal Conflict®, Community Policing Training, Taking the Lead: Courageous Leadership for Today’s Public Safety, and Street Sergeant®: Evidence-Based First-Line Supervision Training.

 

References

[i] Hallett, L. J. (2017). Citizen Perceptions of Minor Changes to the Police Uniform. Unpublished Master’s Thesis: University of Southern Maine; Simpson, R. (2020). Officer appearance and perceptions of the police: accoutrements as signals of intent. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 14(1), 243-257.

 

The shortage of qualified applicants for sworn law enforcement positions has become a crucial problem, and shows no signs of improving in the coming years.[i]  Due to declining birth rates since the early 1970s, the percentage of the U.S. population that is entering the workforce continues to decline.[ii]  Obesity in America is on the rise,  as overall physical fitness declines, making it harder to find physically qualified candidates.[iii]  Mental health and substance abuse issues have skyrocketed since 2008, making it more difficult to find psychologically qualified candidates.[iv] Our economy currently faces an unprecedented labor market trend in which employees are resigning from their jobs in massive numbers to pursue different careers with higher pay, better working conditions or a better work-family life balance.[v]  As a result, law enforcement leaders are being forced to reexamine “the way we’ve always done things” in order to find solutions to this recruiting crisis without lowering standards regarding the character, competence and integrity of potential applicants.

Many law enforcement leaders are reexamining what are truly bona fide minimum requirements for selecting law enforcement officers.  While mental and physical fitness and a background that demonstrates high character are undoubtedly necessary requirements for becoming a law enforcement officer, college credit requirements, age limits in the 30s and other long standing automatic disqualifiers are being debated within agencies that are struggling to find qualified applicants.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify rejecting otherwise qualified applicants, for instance, because they happen to be 40 years old or never attended college, as officer vacancies increase.

The recruiting crisis has reached a level which calls for an open and honest reexamination of minimum qualifications to determine if each one is truly necessary, or simply a best-case-scenario preference.  A mandatory requirement that applicants must be U.S. citizens (by birth or naturalization) before being hired as law enforcement officers is one of the qualifiers that law enforcement leaders and elected officials should consider reexamining.

In this article, we will review the historical link between policing and immigration, examine the characteristics of the present immigrant population in the U.S. and then examine the potential barriers to immigrants serving within law enforcement.  In this discussion, however, please note that when we refer to immigrants to the U.S., we are referring to those within the borders of the U.S. legally, such as those on student visas or resident aliens (i.e., those with “green cards”), not those within the borders of our nation in direct violation of the laws of the United States.  This distinction is extremely important, because we view law-abiding behavior as a non-negotiable minimum standard for working in law enforcement. 

 

Immigrants and Policing

The modern form of policing (i.e., municipal agencies, uniformed patrol, providing around the clock service, etc.) entered American history in the 1830s, especially in the major cities of the Northeast and Midwest.  For most of the first century of American law enforcement history, the profession was widely viewed as a low-status job. 

Maintaining the peace in the overpopulated urban squalor of the early industrial revolution, while working alone with only a wooden club and a whistle to call for help, proved an unattractive job when compared to much higher-paying work opportunities in local factories.  The job was dangerous and the pay was low.  Recruiting was difficult and turnover was high—much as it is today.  As a result, the majority of those individuals working as watchmen, constables, and “coppers” in American cities in the 1800s were immigrants – primarily Irish, Italian, German, Polish, Greek and Ashkenazi Jews.[i]  This was the case from the period of the U.S. Civil War to World War I.  Immigration to the U.S. soared during this era. Table 1 below illustrates the fluctuations in immigration over U.S. history.  Immigrant labor was plentiful and cheap from the 1860s through the 1920s, so many immigrants took the jobs in policing that few wanted.

Table 1. U.S. Immigration Trend, 1850-2020

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau

For these six decades (1860s-1920s), between 13% and 15% of the U.S. population was foreign-born.  This era was followed, however, by a huge drop in immigration throughout most of the twentieth century.  As a result, many Americans forgot what it was like to live in a society with immigrants occupying many needed positions in American society.  Yet, over the last two decades, the percentage of foreign-born persons in the U.S. has returned to nineteenth century levels. Between one and two out of every ten persons in the U.S. today is an immigrant.

Immigrant representation within the law enforcement profession dropped off tremendously throughout most of the twentieth century, primarily because immigration itself had dropped off.[ii] Nevertheless, those who remained working in law enforcement were disproportionately the descendants of the early immigrant police officers.  This is why the ethnic backgrounds of officers in the Midwest and Northeast are disproportionately those of the immigrant groups mentioned earlier—Irish, Italian, German, Polish, Greek and Ashkenazi Jews.  However, because we have just come out of an 80-year period during which immigration was not nearly as common, the practice of employing immigrants in law enforcement seems rather strange to many in our era.

It should also be noted that the U.S. military has a similar history, while the military never actually dropped its practice of employing immigrants.  Throughout its entire existence, from the Revolutionary War to today, there has never been a period when the U.S. military did not have foreign nationals serving within its ranks.  Approximately half of the U.S. Army soldiers who served on the Great Plains during the Indian Wars (1866-1891) were immigrants serving in the Army to earn their citizenship.[iii]  This practice continues today, as the U.S. military currently accepts non-citizen recruits who may qualify for citizenship, with the expectation that the individual will be granted naturalized citizenship upon earning an honorable discharge.[iv]  As of 2013, 5% of new enlistments in the U.S. military were non-citizen individuals.[v]  If selected non-citizens can serve under arms in the U.S. military and pass background checks for security clearances, we should consider the possibility that they can carry a weapons as police officers and complete  pre-employment background checks.

 

Current Documented Immigrant Demographics

According to estimates from the Pew Research Center, of the 46 million foreign-born persons presently in the U.S., 45% are naturalized citizens, 27% are permanent resident aliens, and 5% are temporary residents (mostly students).  The remaining 23% are unauthorized (illegal) residents. The majority of the current U.S. foreign-born population comes from Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba) and Asia (India, China, Philippines, Vietnam, and South Korea).[vi]

Contrary to widely held stereotypes, 73% of the documented immigrant population has the equivalent of a high school education, and 32% hold a college degree.  Some even held professional credentials as doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses or school teachers in their nation of origin.[vii]

The foreign-born population is distributed widely across the nation, but it is most concentrated in the 13 states listed in Table 2 below.  These 13 states are also some of the states struggling most with finding qualified applicants to fill law enforcement officer vacancies.  It is noteworthy, then, that a number of the states that are as much as 15% to 23% foreign-born, have prohibited non-citizens from consideration for employment in law enforcement.  In such states, automatically disqualifying non-citizens instantly eliminates a sizable portion of the potential applicant pool.

A quick scan of Table 2 also reveals that this issue is not solely determined by the state’s political orientation.  Conservative states like Texas, and liberal states like California and Hawaii, have opened the profession to qualified non-citizens.  Meanwhile, liberal states like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island join conservative states like Florida in barring non-citizens from the law enforcement profession.  It seems possible, then, that the conversation around non-citizens as sworn officers may be an issue of practicality and logistics more so than liberal versus conservative politics.

Table 2. Foreign-born Concentrations and Employability in Law Enforcement

Data Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and each state’s police standards and training (POST) website.     

 

 

Potential Barriers to Non-Citizen Officers

There are a number of potential barriers to employing non-citizens as law enforcement officers. First, as revealed in Table 2, are state laws.  Obviously, if your state law bars non-citizens from serving as law enforcement officers, your agency cannot hire such individuals.  But are these laws well-suited for today’s circumstances?  If not, your chiefs’ and sheriffs’ associations are entities that could lobby for a change in the law.

Another barrier is immigrant classification.  Under federal law, non-citizens must have permanent resident status, or be students with work visas, before they can be lawfully employed within the United States.  This would limit law enforcement agencies to considering only individuals such as these for employment.  Luckily, of the non-citizens currently in the country (legally or illegally), more than half (approximately 58%) fit this categorization for lawful employability.    

The other minimum employment qualifications may also be a barrier.  Can the applicant speak and read English at a proficient level?  Does the applicant have the equivalent of at least a high school education?  Does the applicant have a valid driver’s license?  Does the applicant meet the minimum physical and mental qualifications?  Can the applicant complete the physical and academic requirements of the academy?  These practical issues seem like potentially insurmountable barriers, until we consider that for the last two decades, the U.S. military has been able to recruit more than 20,000 non-citizens annually who were permanent resident aliens, could pass a written and spoken English proficiency test, pass an intelligence test, pass a military physical and psychological screening and complete the rigors of basic training.[viii]  Many of the individuals that successfully met the entry standards for military service may have also  met the entry standards for law enforcement employment.

On the surface, it would seem that conducting a background check on a non-citizen would be another barrier.  How does a local law enforcement agency check the past of someone who, until recently, lived in another country that speaks another language?  Nevertheless, if the applicant has secured permanent resident status, the applicant has already provided the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services with a mountain of documentation which federal investigators have both examined and vetted.  Obtaining that permanent resident application packet will provide a vast amount of information on the applicant’s background and associations.[ix]  Furthermore, the U.S. military faces the same challenges when screening non-citizen service members for security clearances, yet is still able to successfully conduct these clearance investigations.  This does not mean that every non-citizen legally authorized to work in the U.S. will be eligible for a background investigation thorough enough to meet your agency standards.  It does mean that the categorical rejection of all non-citizens will likely exclude applicants who could withstand such a background investigation.

Finally, a lack of knowledge among eligible candidates is surely a barrier.  Many people do not realize that non-citizens can serve in our military and, similarly, most people likely do not realize that non-citizens could serve as law enforcement officers without some form of proactive outreach effort. This barrier would require intentional recruiting efforts to advertise that non-citizens can also apply and educate qualified candidates on the benefits of a law enforcement career.

 

Conclusion

In critical professional positions—from priests to nurses to doctors—non-citizens serve an essential role in the everyday lives of Americans.  If we entrust legally authorized non-citizens to serve in these roles, is it time to consider similar eligibility for service as sworn law enforcement officers in the face of an unprecedented staffing crisis? 

If the U.S. military is able to attract tens of thousands of qualified, non-citizen applicants, the law enforcement profession should consider the possibility of doing so as well.  Military service requires risking one’s life, submitting to strict discipline and surrendering a number of basic personal freedoms such as choice of job, place of residence, ability to see one’s family and going home after an 8-hour workday—all for low pay.  If tens of thousands of qualified non-citizens are willing to serve in the U.S. military under these conditions, how many more might be willing to serve in a law enforcement career with better pay, set shifts, a choice of where to live and the ability to see their families at the end of the workday?

Recruiting qualified non-citizens is not a quick fix that will solve our law enforcement recruiting crisis, nor is raising the maximum age for applicants, waiving college credit requirements or any other change to “the way we’ve always done things”.  But as law enforcement leaders look for the best possible options for staffing their agencies now and in the years ahead, it may be one of many new options that can help us weather the storm that we are facing when it comes to officer staffing.     

 

 

About the Authors

Matt Dolan, J.D.

Matt Dolan is a licensed attorney who specializes in training and advising public safety agencies in matters of legal liability, risk management and ethical leadership.  His training focuses on helping agency leaders create ethically and legally sound policies and procedures as a proactive means of minimizing liability and maximizing agency effectiveness.  

A member of a law enforcement family dating back three generations, he serves as both Director and Public Safety Instructor with Dolan Consulting Group. 

His training courses include Should Non-Citizens Be Cops? Legal and Practical Considerations, Internal Affairs Investigations: Legal Liability and Best Practices, Supervisor Liability for Law Enforcement, Recruiting and Hiring for Law Enforcement, Confronting the Toxic Officer and Confronting Bias in Law Enforcement.

 

Richard R. Johnson, Ph.D.

Richard R. Johnson, PhD, is a trainer and researcher with Dolan Consulting Group.  He has decades of experience teaching and training on various topics associated with criminal justice, and has conducted research on a variety of topics related to crime and law enforcement.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration and criminal justice from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University, with a minor in social psychology.  He possesses a master’s degree in criminology from Indiana State University.  He earned his doctorate in criminal justice from the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati with concentrations in policing and criminal justice administration.

Dr. Johnson has published more than 50 articles on various criminal justice topics in academic research journals, including Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, Criminal Justice & Behavior, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Police Quarterly.  He has also published more than a dozen articles in law enforcement trade journals such as the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Police Chief, Law & Order, National Sheriff, and Ohio Police Chief. His research has primarily focused on police-citizen interactions, justice system responses to domestic violence, and issues of police administration and management.  Dr. Johnson retired as a full professor of criminal justice at the University of Toledo in 2016.

Prior to his academic career, Dr. Johnson served several years working within the criminal justice system.  He served as a trooper with the Indiana State Police, working uniformed patrol in Northwest Indiana.  He served as a criminal investigator with the Kane County State’s Attorney Office in Illinois, where he investigated domestic violence and child sexual assault cases.  He served as an intensive probation officer for felony domestic violence offenders with the Illinois 16th Judicial Circuit.  Dr. Johnson is also a proud military veteran having served as a military police officer with the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, including active duty service after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Before that, he served as an infantry soldier and field medic in the U.S. Army and Army National Guard.

His training courses include Reporting Accurate Traffic Stop Data: Evidence-Based Best Practices , and Safe Places: Protecting Places of Worship from Violence and Crime.

 

 

References

[i] Travis III, Lawrence F., & Langworthy, Robert H. (2007). Policing in America: A Balance of Forces, 4th Edition. New York: Pearson; Wadman, Robert C., & Allison, William T. (2003). To Protect and to Serve: A History of Police in America, 1st Edition. New York: Pearson.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Utley, Robert M. (1984). Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

[iv] Hattiangadi, Anita, Quester, Aline, Lee, Gary, Lien, Diana, & MacLeod, Ian (2005). Non-Citizens in Today’s Military: Final Report. Arlington, VA: CAN Corporation. Available here: https://www.cna.org/archive/CNA_Files/pdf/d0011092.a2.pdf

[v] Barry, Catherine N. (2013). New Americans in Our Nation’s Military: A Proud Tradition and Hopeful Future. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

[vi] Budiman, Abby (2020). Key Findings about U.S. Immigrants. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

[vii] Budiman, Abby (2020). Key Findings about U.S. Immigrants. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

[viii] Barry, Catherine N. (2013). New Americans in Our Nation’s Military: A Proud Tradition and Hopeful Future. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

[ix] See U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, How to Apply for a Green Card? Accessed at: https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/how-to-apply-for-a-green-card

[i] Dolan, Matt, & Johnson, Richard R. (2022). Weathering the Storm in Police Staffing? Raleigh, NC: Dolan Consulting Group

[ii] Kearney, Melissa, Levine, Phillip, & Pardue, Luke (2022, February 15). “The mystery of the declining U.S. birth rate.” Econofacts. Accessed on 09/26/2022 from: https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth-rate

[iii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020). National Center for Health Statistics Fast Facts: Weight Status and Size. Washington, DC: Center for Disease Control. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

[iv] Mental Health America (2021). Mental Health in America, 2020. Alexandria, VA: Mental Health America. Available at: https://mhanational.org/issues/mental-health-america-printed-reports; Hedegaard, Holly, Curtin, Sally, & Warner, Margaret (2020). Increase in Suicide Mortality in the United States, 1999–2018. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db362.htm  

[v] Fuller, Joseph & Kerr, William (2022, March 23). “The Great Resignation didn’t start with the pandemic.” Harvard Business Review. Accessed on 09/26/2022 from: https://hbr.org/2022/03/the-great-resignation-didnt-start-with-the-pandemic