After looking at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy website, Craig Tucker, Rushville’s police chief, said he counted 80 agencies in Indiana trying to fill at least one job opening.  

It didn’t give Tucker great hopes in his ability to use traditional means like advertising to fill a new opening in his department. 

“What you see now is a lot of guys who are already academy certified … are going to larger agencies that pay more money,” Tucker said.

The chief is looking to expand his team to 13 officers, so he can grow community policing efforts — meaning simply being more involved in Rushville events and activities — and give his current staff a break from overtime. Of the current dozen officers on staff, eight of them are assigned to patrol duties, leaving little time for other outreach. Long term, Tucker wants not one, but two new cops on his force.

But that growth likely won’t come from marketing, advertising or traditional recruiting. Experts, including researchers at the Police Executive Research Forum, say the competition for law enforcement staff is too great. 

According to June 2021 survey results of 194 law enforcement agencies around the country, relatively small departments like Tucker’s are filling about 92 percent of openings. At the same time, departments of all sizes are seeing increases in the number of staff who are resigning or retiring from their positions, often citing high risk, low pay and low morale as factors.

So Tucker is teaming up with Rushville Consolidated High School administrators, creating a program that will introduce careers in public service to local students, in a grow-your-own initiative that he’s hoping will reap big benefits. 

“We do have the capacity that if these kids graduate (from the program), and they are serious about (becoming a cop) we have the opportunity to maybe bring them in and help bolster our staff,” Tucker said.  

New vocational programs 

Starting this fall, 31 students are taking a principles of criminal justice class, part of a new vocational training program at RCHS. The class is a component of a law enforcement, fire and rescue, and EMS vocational training program designed to introduce students to careers that don’t necessarily require four-year degrees. 

Collin McCartt, assistant principal at the high school, said much of his focus this fall will be on vocational and career readiness. 

“As an administration team, we decided last school year in the late fall that we would like to start some vocational programming of our own,” McCartt said.  

Currently students enrolled in vocational courses attend the Whitewater Career Center in Connersville, about 20 minutes from RCHS.

McCartt said the Rushville program wanted to start with programming they knew could have immediate impact.

“We had a lot of discussion with the mayor of Rushville and he expressed concern about how hard it was for them to hire people into the area of public safety,” he said. 

Additional conversations revealed that  EMS, fire and rescue, and criminal justice were the programs of highest need for the community.

“We want to train our students and keep them in the community,” he said. “We are very excited that we were able to start these programs in under a year.  We have great enrollment numbers and the programs will only continue to grow.”

Tucker has high hopes for the vocational classes and believes that the program will build the connection between the current officers and young people.

“It will give the students a realistic look into this progression (from police academy to patrol) that cannot be captured in a textbook,” Tucker said. 

Tucker’s situation isn’t unique. 

Ron Galaviz, chief public information officer for the Indiana State Police said his agency has had a drop in applications since 2020. 

To combat the problem, Galaviz said the agency is in the middle of a large-scale recruiting effort, necessary because of the work required of those on patrol. 

“In the rural counties, the Indiana State Police works closely with its local and county colleagues… because in some instances, troopers are responsible for covering more than one county during any given shift,” Galaviz said. 

Tucker said one of the reasons why he’s been having trouble recruiting is because people tend to seek bigger departments due to the additional money that other establishments offer. 

The base salary for an officer starting out is $53,000, which Tucker said is good for Rushville. Galaviz said the starting salary for a first year trooper is $70,000. 

Beyond the difference in pay, Tucker said many potential recruits are also unaware of job opportunities that he offers because of location. He’s used Facebook, and recently added an Instagram account to try to target younger applicants. 

And even if his department gets applicants, moving them from paper to patrol is… challenging. 

Tucker had six people recently apply for openings. Three of the applicants never showed up for an interview, the other three couldn’t pass the physical exam. 

“With the physical standards, (recruits) have to be able to pass a certain level, and we have no discretion in that,” Tucker said. “But we feel like if we can get somebody through the academy and get them here, through our field training process, we have a very good success rate of teaching them how to be a police officer.” 

Tucker expects in the first year of the vocational program, classes will be taught in the high school and focus on academic work. 

During the second year, the classes could be taught at an off-site location, such as the training rooms at the police department or sheriff’s department.