10 Easiest Police Force to Join: Cities with Police Shortages

If you are looking for a job of police officer, our list of the easiest police force to join: cities with police shortages, should provide you with some useful information.

Police shortages can last for years, because the hiring process is very long and can last more than one year, plus very small percent of applicants actually get the job. Minimal requirements for the job are usually: high school diploma, being 21 years old, being US citizen, having valid drivers license, and passing a fitness test. Passing the background check, completing police academy training, field training, are steps that lead to getting a job of chasing bad guys. Once you get the job, you will probably see many things better left unseen, work night shifts, work overtime, and switch to a fast food diet out of convenience. All that explains why a job of a police officer is very demanding, and how it can take a serious toll on your physical and mental health. If you are thinking about becoming a police officer, think about that side effects for a while. However, the feeling of catching bad guys is probably awesome, and well worth it.

If you are a police officer who is soon going to be retired, we have a perfect article for you too – Jobs for Police Officers After Retirement.

Creating a list of cities with police shortages, proved to be somewhat complicated. We found a data set for the year 2015, on FBI’s website with all the data necessary to calculate the number of police officers per capita for most cities in the US, and so we did. However, a low number of police officers per 1,000 people is not really an objective measure of shortage, because some cities simply have very little crime rates. Because this is also a list of the easiest police force to join, we figured that they should have open job positions. We searched Indeed, for police officers jobs, which are full-time jobs. The problem with this approach is that, it’s not quite possible to filter only jobs that are for police departments but we also get jobs related to working as security. Our solution was, to just make a list of all the cities with jobs for police officers and then rank those cities based on those per capita numbers, we mentioned earlier, and that is how we created our list of 10 easiest police force to join: cities with police shortages.

10. Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)

2.84 police officers per capita

Pittsburgh police department is facing retirements in great numbers, and about 100 were expected to happen during the last year. Median police officer salary is $51,584.

9. Dallas (Texas)

2.68 police officers per capita

Dallas had 3,484 police officers in 2015, and 2.68 police officers per capita. In spring of 2016 they had to cancel two Academy classes for lack of applicants.

8. San Francisco (California)

2.59 police officers per capita

San Francisco had 2,236 police officers in 2015, and 2.59 police officers per capita. Starting salary for a police officer in San Francisco is $83,018.

7. Los Angeles (California)

2.49 police officers per capita

In December 2016, LPD was short of nearly 100 police officers. In 2015, it had 9,863 police officers and 2.49 police officers per capita.

6. Houston (Texas)

2.28 police officers per capita

It is estimated that HPD is between 800 and 1500 officers short. However, the city’s budget cannot afford such an increase.

5. Mobile (Alabama)

2.04 police officers per capita

Mobile has 510 officers and about 2 police officers per 1000 people. The median salary for police patrol officer in Mobile is $49,836.

4. Seattle (Washington)

1.97 police officers per capita

Seattle is probably one of better options on our list of the easiest police force to join: cities with police shortages, because police officers have very good salaries – starting salary is almost $70,000 – compare that to median pay of $56,800 in Chicago, or $54,000 in Portland and when you factor in that SPD plans to keep hiring about 100 officers per year over the next few years Seattle seems like a very good choice.

3. Austin (Texas)

1.86 police officers per capita

With 1,750 police officers and number of police officers per capita being close to two, who would expect that in Austin, even detectives have to do patrol shifts! In 2015 police wanted to hire 400 police officers over five years, but The City Council opted for buying body cameras instead.

2. Indianapolis (Indiana)

1.83 police officers per capita

At number two on our list of the easiest police force to join: cities with police shortages we have Indianapolis that loses approximately 50 officers each year, to retirements and resignations, so it is likely that the shortage from 2014 is ongoing. In 2007 police department had 1740 officers and by 2015 it dropped to 1,578.

1. Odessa (Texas)

1.17 police officers per capita

Odessa had 139, police officers in 2015, and its police department was looking to fill 26 positions. We finish our list of the easiest police force to join: cities with police shortages, in hope that you found it useful.