Police Apprenticeships for Youth Can Enhance Recruitment and the Quality of Officers While Lowering Costs

Police officers play a vital role in keeping communities safe and enforcing the law. Yet, recent years have witnessed increased retirements, high vacancy rates, and difficulties in recruiting cohorts of new officers. Still, salaries and fringe benefits for police generally well exceed compensation for other professions that do not require a bachelor's degree. This policy brief examines the potential for the apprenticeship model to attract a wide group of applicants, to enhance the quantity and quality of training, to improve selection into the full-time force and to do so without increasing department costs.