Maria Elena Scott
Cleveland police partnered with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies over the summer to target violent crime.
“We’re hemorrhaging officers. Officers that I’ve been engaging with, and I’m hearing from citizens, they believe, they actually believe that the city does not want to hire police,” said committee chair Mike Polensek.
The Cleveland Police Department currently has 1,211 officers. Since January 2022, 301 officers have departed.. According to deputy chief of administrative operations Daniel Fay, five officers are pending reinstatement after previously leaving and 17 recruits are in the police academy — nine who are expected to graduate on December 1 and eight who are to graduate next March.
Mayor Justin Bibb announced pay increases and sign-on bonuses over the summer which, according to the city, increased police applications by 45 percent for a total of 295 in the third quarter of the year. But, given that Cleveland is budgeted for 1,498 officers, councilman Kris Harsh voiced concern that not enough applicants became officers.
“We don’t know how many of them are going to be eligible. But even if we only pick 15%, which is the equivalent of 17 out of 115, then that leaves us with 44 recruits…if we take 44 and multiply it by 85 percent we get 37 graduates. That’s assuming that all 295 applicants are eligible under civil service,” said Harsh. “That 37 still does not tread water and residents in my ward want traffic enforcement. They want to see somebody pulled over for speeding because there is no traffic enforcement in this city right now.”
Although he didn’t elaborate in the meeting, Department of Public Safety Director Karrie Howard said an after-action report detailing the reasons applicants and recruits were rejected would be released later. He also told council the Division of Police was actively trying to recruit qualified individuals, but recruitment was a nationwide challenge for not only police departments, but the military and other law enforcement agencies like ATF.
“The turbulence that we are going through with staffing the Division of Police is something that was forecasted back in 2009. It was exacerbated by Covid and the turbulent environment between community and police relations,” Howard said. “It’s difficult to recruit for police. Frankly, there’s a number of people that just don’t want to be police officers.”
In addition to $5,000 sign-on bonuses, reimbursement of out-of-pocket costs to attend Tri-C’s police academy, an $8 increase in cadet salaries and the opportunity to enter the Cleveland Police Department at a higher level with a college degree or military experience, officers are also able to advance in rank faster. While old contracts required 10 years to reach the top rank of patrol officer, new contracts allow for the same advancement in just five years.
The incentives are part of Bibb’s Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone (RISE) Initiative, which also features technological investments with programs like ShotSpotter and Fusus, partnerships with agencies like the FBI and US Marshals to crack down on violent crime and a $10 million fund to address the root causes of and prevent violence.
Some council members were more level-headed about the challenges than others.
“They’re selling drugs and they’re urinating, they’re defecating, they’re smoking weed, they’re smoking drugs, they’re shooting themselves with needles, all right out in the open in public,” said vice chair Joseph Jones. “We won’t be able to bring investors in our neighborhood, rebuild our neighborhood and communities and do it in such a way that we’re bringing investments in. If our investors come in and see that, they’re going to think twice if they want to invest in our neighborhood.”
Touting the RISE Initiative, Howard pushed back on the idea that law enforcement alone could eliminate crime.
“A lot of times, we place on police what are really societal issues. We have crime that is formulated out of a recipe, is what the experts say,” Howard said. “There’s a recipe for crime. Some of that is lack of resources, economics, mental health, those types of things. As a government body, local, state and federal, we’ve got to address mental health, we’ve got to address economics.”
Council President Blaine Griffin, who isn’t a member of the Safety Committee, also spoke at the meeting. To address low numbers of police officers, Griffin endorsed letting individuals over the age of 18 who are interested in working in law enforcement work in unarmed positions, like traffic control auxiliary, until they turn 21 years old. He also suggested investing more heavily in technology.
“If we are not going to get bodies–even though I am not a huge fan of AI and I think that we need to make sure that we always are looking at some of the bias and things that happen in AI–I do think that we really need to look at where we’re beefing up technology,” Griffin said. “Because, if we’re not going to have bodies, we need to make sure that we do understand technology more.”
While much of the meeting’s focus centered on the Division of Police, other Public Safety Department divisions are also struggling to fill positions, including the office of inspector general. With the support of the Department of Justice, efforts are underway to officially change the position from a police inspector general, who would report directly to the police, to a safety inspector general, who would report directly to Howard.
“We have made two attempts to fill this position…Unfortunately, with the state of things around the country, this is a very sought-after position to be filled from jurisdictions around the country,” Howard said.
Officials hope to staff an inspector general, deputy inspector general and an assistant for the office–but the search hasn’t been fruitful.
“We have had conversations internally about what a competitive salary looks like for this position and, full transparency, it may require that we look to increase that,” said chief ethics officer Delante Spencer Thomas.
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