SystemStats [2003 : summer]

North ChroLira Criminal JLstdre Analysis Garter Gbercr's Crime Garniissicn RecruitnEnt and Retention of 9wp m Ralioe Perscmel Introduction Ihe Governor 's Crime Gmnissian, in cm junction with the North Carolina Criminal Jnstice Bdratim and Train- ing Standards CCrrmissicn and the North Carolina 9ner- iffs' Education and Training Stancterds Qormissian, held a joint planing retreat in the early sourer of 2СШ to identify and address tie rrajor aierging issues facing tfe state s criminal jostice s/stm and its piolic safety persmrel . He issue of recruitment and retention was ictentifiedas a significant aim of coxem with tie joint crranissions revesting that an in-c^th and statarlcte stud/ be ccrdrted in this arm. J^edfically, four sudn studies were repeated with mch stud/ fccusing cn ere segnent of tie public safety caurunity . Ftesaarch studies cn recruiting and retaining scan police offic¬ ers, элот cfeputy deriffs, ettentien facility personnel and telecamunicators were ccrrpleted by markers of the North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Ganter and staff from tie two training and staxterds ccnmLs- sians. This issue of S^starStats presents a coxtensed version of tie final rqport cn recruiting and retaining элот police officers. Methods A 27-itsn surv^ was created by tie remarch team with tie first sadden of tie qestiermaire presenting qes- ticns which addressed tie issue of recruiting swm police personnel . Tie sur\e/ iters ctealt with recruit¬ ment strategies and techniques, tie rurber of appli- carnts and the ©ctant to which tie reqxnding agency had a backlog or waiting list of pctsntial carndictetes. Part two addtessad tie issue of attrition and rteertion and inducted questions which were ctesigred to ctecail tie responding agency' s tumewer and vacancy rates and hew them have varied over the past three ymrs. Atctalof 205 surve were distributed with 53 (25.8%) going to acpndes with more than 18 эшт officers, 45 (22%) to agencies with nine to 18 элот officers and 43 (21%) being mailed to acpnd.es with five to eicjnt элсоп officers. The remaining 64 surve/s (31.2%) were nailed to the state' s suallest law enforcement agen¬ cies as ctefiredas having fe/er than five full-tine scan officers . A tctal of 124 questionnaires were caiplteed ky agency personnel producing an aggregate return rate of 63 percent. Results ifeemitnent Issues Surve/ participants were asked to ctescrike their re¬ spect ive aepreies' recruitment strategies cn a con¬ tinuum which ranged from passive to neutral to strongly aggressive. As Figure 1 (pacp2) re/mls the reqoorrtents were fairly eenly distributed actcss the five avaiidole reqoonse categories with cnehhird re¬ porting that their аерху7 s recruitment strategy cculd best be ctescdbed as reutral. Only 2.5 percent sug¬ gested a strongly aggressive recruitment strategy. Gnbining the five requonse categories into three pro¬ cures an almost ictentical and equal dLstributim with 35.2 percent of the acpxdes having a passive recruit¬ ment strategy, 33.6 parent ctescrikarg their strategy as reutral and the reTBining 31.2 percent reporting an aggressive strategy. The most frequently erplo/ed recruitment technique was word of meuth (N=118) with 95 percent of the respoxtemts indicating that this was the preferred method which their respective agencies used to re¬ cruit potential officers . The second most armtn re¬ cruitment technique was newspaper advertising (N=103, 83.1 %) , foLlo/ed by recruiting Йпгсиф the local cammity colleges (N=89, 71.8%) ax) use of the Internet (N=78, 62.9%) . Becruitmant throxjn the