David Clarey
Earlier this month, Tamellia Williams joined 36 other recruits at the Milwaukee Fire and Police Academy to graduate and receive their badges after a lengthy recruitment and training process.
After more than six months of hard work and training, they were all officially Milwaukee police officers.
The number of graduates was far from what the city's goal was. The city had budgeted for 65 new officers needed to be on stage, nearly double the 37 which graduated on Oct. 3.
"As I've always said on multiple occasions, we do not want more officers," their boss, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman, told the 36 recruits. "We need more officers."
The need for classes like this is critical for obvious reasons — it allows the Milwaukee Police Department to maintain and grow its staffing — but starting this year the classes have taken on increased significance.
That’s because of Wisconsin Act 12, a 2023 Wisconsin funding law that grants the city more state funding but also requires it to grow its police force to 1,725 officers within 10 years of the city’s new sales tax going into effect earlier this year.
In August, the Milwaukee Police Department had 1,587 sworn officers. Act 12 does not allow grant-funded officers to be counted in its total, meaning the city's roughly 82 grant-funded positions don't count toward that requirement, according to an August staffing report.
The requirement comes as public opinion on policing became widely mixed following police misconduct in the 2010s and the murder of George Floyd during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the time since, officials have described police recruitment as a "crisis" across the country.
In Milwaukee, academics and police told the Journal Sentinel the public perception of police has made recruitment harder and the job unfashionable for prospective candidates. It's left the city and department trying to find ways to change the public image in hopes of increasing recruitment.
Data from Milwaukee bears that dynamic out, with applications down this year and recruit classes like Williams’ short. However, with state funding on the line, the city and police department have to find solutions while finding qualified applicants to apply.
That means convincing more recruits like Williams to apply. The 30-year-old is a Milwaukee native, was previously in the U.S. Army and has a strong ethos behind her decision to join the department.
“To try to give back to a place where I grew up,” she said of why she wanted to join the department. “And showing the younger generation that they don’t have to be afraid of us, that we’re going to help them, and be a light for them.”
Mayor’s budget funds “maximum number” of new officers as officials try to ease process for candidates
The penalties for not meeting Act 12's staffing requirements could cost the city millions of dollars.
Under the law, Milwaukee will lose 15% of its shared revenue from the state if it does not maintain the number of police officers and the daily staffing level in the Fire Department minimally at the numbers from the previous year. The city met that requirement this year and projections show it will make it in 2025, officials said previously.
However, the effort to increase the police force is not solely driven by Act 12 funding. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said it is a priority of his and for two consecutive years he has proposed in his annual budget what he described as the “maximum number of recruits," or three classes of 65 recruits.
Data from the Fire and Police Commission, the oversight body for Milwaukee’s fire and police departments and which oversees recruitment, shows the city did not reach that figure this year. In the two classes for this year so far, the city has appointed 46 and 33 recruits to its classes, which were each budgeted for up to 65 recruits. Those classes then go on to the academy, where some drop out or do not complete the process for various reasons.
The year prior, they were able to recruit at the maximum, but data shows applications have dropped since 2022.
In 2022, the city received 1,373 applications. The following year that figure was 895 and this year, as of Aug. 31, the city received 930 applications.
Beyond receiving the applications, the city also deals with a no-show rate for the written test, the first step after your application is approved, that hovers around 50%, Todd said and data shows. For instance, in 2023, of the 895 who met the position's minimum qualifications, 488 showed up — meaning 55% of applicants didn't.
The written test is designed to measure "aptitude for and compatibility with the position", according to the city's website.
Recruitment is more difficult now compared to 10 to 20 years ago, said Fire and Police Commission Executive Director Leon Todd. He cited dissatisfaction with police following Floyd's murder and generational differences on what people want from careers and how long they want to have a career for.
"I think there are a lot of young people ... who really do, in their heart of hearts, want to go into something that is community or public service focused," Todd said. "But they don't always necessarily think of being a police officer, as something like that."
Todd’s department is attempting to counter the trends by shifting how recruitment works. The commission has begun allowing applications to be filed throughout the year. Previously, it accepted applications only during certain periods throughout the year.
It also started accepting online testing for potential candidates. Todd hopes this change will improve the 50% no-show rate for police testing. Other testing includes an oral interview, a writing sample and physical ability testing.
In a Sept. 16 meeting of the Fire and Police Commission's recruiting committee, Todd said they also have "nearly tripled" its advertising budget and added a new recruiter.
The city is looking beyond new recruitment too, recently striking a deal with the Milwaukee Police Association, the rank-and-file union for officers, allowing for lateral transfers. That allows the department to hire officers directly from other departments.
About five years ago, the department was at about 1,900 officers. Todd said growing the department’s officers to Act 12’s requirements would mean practical benefits that residents have indicated they want to see.
That’s things like higher clearance rates on crimes; faster dispatch and response times; and increased officer visibility.
"We're doing all these different things to increase our recruitment and improve our testing processes," Todd said. "So, I think we're doing everything that we can, sort of with the long view in mind, to add officers, both in the short term ... and also the long term."
A national 'crisis'
Police recruitment is far from an issue just in Milwaukee, as officials across the nation have noted.
A 2023 U.S. Department of Justice report said: "Law enforcement is at a crossroads as more officers are leaving the field through resignation or retirement and fewer qualified applicants are considering policing as a career.”
A report by the Police Executive Research Forum the same year found that law enforcement agencies were experiencing an increased number of resignations and retirements, at 66% and 65% respectively, from 2020 to 2022. At the same time, applications for open positions were down 69%, the report found.
A 2023 staffing report found in Milwaukee, since 2009, the department shrank by 16%. Starting in 2024, the city began budgeting to increase the department's size, with the goal to be at 1,645 sworn officers this year.
“It’s not a Milwaukee thing, everywhere across the country just cannot get the bodies,” Mayor Johnson said in a previous interview with the Journal Sentinel.
Earlier this year, Mateus R. Santos, an associate professor of criminology at the University of South Florida, studied why people were skipping over a potential field in law enforcement and what might change it.
“It’s awful. We’re going through a hiring crisis in law enforcement,” Santos said.
His research, published in May, surveyed why or why not a pool of 604 undergraduate college students, which he described as the best candidates for policing, would want to enter law enforcement and what factors might shift that. Santos found students were generally disinterested in the career field and worried about possible legal repercussions for making mistakes. Students were concerned about the danger of the field as well.
He said they didn’t understand the practical benefits of the career, like its pay and pension, or the legal protections.
“They don’t think policing is cool. It used to be a lot more cool and now it’s uncool,” Santos said.
The president of the police union, Alex Ayala, said his organization supports the city’s moves to fund full recruitments. But he said the biggest differentiator would be improving pay for officers. He said the union and city are currently negotiating a new contract, with the last one expiring about two years ago.
Currently, Milwaukee pays police recruits a starting salary of $47,673.69, which increases to $63,564.75 after they graduate from the police academy. The maximum pay is $84,743.87, according to a Milwaukee police officer job posting.
He suggested other departments in the state are more attractive than Milwaukee.
"You’re not addressing the root issue of why you’re getting 35 recruits," he said. "The wages are low."
Milwaukee police attempt to shift public perception
Billie Ellis is a Milwaukee police officer and one of two recruiters, along with Ralph McClain, with the department. She said the top challenge they face in recruiting new officers is the perception of policing due to police misconduct.
The most damaging misconduct issue was in 2020, when Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, with the officer maintaining his knee on Floyd until he died. Chauvin was later found guilty of murder, and it led to protests against policing across the country.
Public surveys from Pew and Gallup showed at the time public opinion on police was largely mixed, with stark differences in opinion by political affiliation and race. It appeared to be further negatively impacted – dropping to 43% confidence in 2023, according to Gallup.
Polling shows opinion of policing started to rebound recently.
Marcey Patterson, manager in the Milwaukee police’s office of community relations, engagement and recruitment, said the department has had to rebuild trust with the community following Floyd’s murder.
“In my experience, in the last two years, the community seems to welcome us better,” she said. “I think we’re just now at a space where we are rebuilding the trust with the community… I think being able to be consistent with building that trust, I think, is important.”
Milwaukee’s department has attempted to engage with the community in response, the recruiter Ellis said. In the last two years, they have emphasized police as "everyday people" in social media videos and held more events
“I think it’s getting better for us,” Ellis said, and noted it was difficult following COVID-19. “We try to humanize the badge … I think it’s starting to open people’s eyes they’re just trying to do their job.”
Meghan Stroshine, an associate professor of criminology and law studies at Marquette University, said she believed efforts to shift the image of police from "very militaristic" to one that is more community-oriented would be an effective tactic.
“I think that much of the dissatisfaction with police, the lack of trust in police, is tied to a particular type of policing − more aggressive policing," Stroshine said.
The push to change the perception comes at the same time as pressure from Act 12’s funding requirements.
But, between both, Ellis said she feels the most pressure from other officers, as retirements through the department over the last two years have created a shortage of officers.
“I see my fellow officers out there struggling, because we’re so short staffed,” she said. “Everybody’s looking at me and Ralph like, 'What are you guys doing?’”
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