Summary
Recruiting diverse, qualified candidates is a continual challenge for law enforcement. With the downturn in the economy came a flood of applicants, but also, eventually, slashed funding for recruitment and hiring. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has felt the recession keenly: Its advertising budget was cut by 60 percent in fiscal year 2009, and, in 2011, the Los Angeles City Council approved a three-month hiring freeze. The LAPD, and law enforcement in general, can clearly benefit from evidence-based approaches to evaluating recruitment programs and streamlining the application process. Using LAPD and city administrative data from fiscal years 2007 and 2008, the author estimates impacts — in terms of applicant numbers — for LAPD's recruitment efforts and proposes a revised model for prioritizing applicants. While the results of these analyses may be of particular interest to LAPD, the methods employed, as well as those recommended for future studies, are applicable to any law enforcement agency interested in attracting and identifying high-quality applicants more efficiently.