Helping the New Orleans Police Department with Recruitment and Retention
Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed largely disabled the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). As a result, the NOPD has suffered from unusually high rates of departure from the force and an inability to recruit new officers.
RAND Center on Quality Policing researchers conducted a "quick-look study" to help address the NOPD's recruiting and retention problems, drawing on insights gained from decades of working with a number of large governmental organizations on ways to improve the management of their personnel systems, most extensively with the Department of Defense but more recently with several municipal police departments.
In the first 14 months after Katrina, the NOPD lost officers at annualized rate of about 17 percent, compared to 5 percent before the storm. More problematic, losses were concentrated among the junior ranks–the officers who patrol the streets and who were being groomed for future leadership.
Recognizing the city's budgetary constraints, researchers focused on, but were not limited to, identifying initiatives that could help the NOPD while imposing modest or no additional costs on the city. For example, NOPD salaries are not competitive with those in comparable cities, which led researchers to stress the need for the city to follow through on promises for pay increases as patrolmen advance through the junior ranks.
The study also identified initiatives to remove some identified impediments to career progression; in addition, it suggested the NOPD make its recruiting effort more proactive and ensure that all uniformed personnel are assigned to duties that they-as opposed to civilians-are uniquely qualified to perform. The study also stresses the need for the city begin to rebuild the criminal justice infrastructure damaged by the storm.
Mayor Ray Nagin, Superintendent Warren Riley, and RAND released the study to the public jointly at a press conference at City Hall in New Orleans on March 30, 2007. The Mayor said, "Combating crime and rebuilding the New Orleans criminal justice system remains a top priority for the city's recovery. The RAND Corporation offers a level of expertise that can assist in developing creative strategies to help our police department protect and serve the citizens of New Orleans." At that time, he noted that the city had already acted upon several of the RAND recommendations, most notably, increasing the pay of junior patrolmen and (with the New Orleans Civil Service Commission) moving to increase the frequency of the promotion examinations.
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