Financial incentives for police recruitment and retention: perceived effectiveness and tradeoffs

Abstract

Police agencies continually struggle to attract and retain officers. Social exchange theory, suggesting that employees develop expectations of reciprocity with employers, provides one lens to examine such efforts. This work assesses 29 financial tactics, identified through a systematic review of sources, that police agencies may use to recruit and retain officers. It reports practitioner perceptions regarding these tactics on workforce levels, Page 2 of 2 workload management, speed of impact, ease of implementation, agency costs, quality of police work, officer diversity, and community policing. It suggests that financial tactics providing the most direct, tangible benefits to employees (e.g. pay and retirement plans) may be the most effective form of social exchange between agencies and officers. For several tactics, agencies may need to consider the trade-off between investment and effect. Given the exploratory nature of this inquiry, future research may assess perceptions among broader or systematically selected samples or the actual effectiveness of tactics.