Despite recruiting efforts, WA law enforcement numbers still lowest in country

(The Center Square) – During the upcoming legislative session, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs will be pushing for legislation to deal with the state’s shortage of law enforcement officers

WASPC Executive Director Steve Strachan told The Center Square that Washington is still last in the nation in terms of law enforcement per capita.

“We’ve been losing ground steadily and really all we are doing is slowing the loss a little bit,” he said.

The loss of law enforcement personnel in the Evergreen State started during the later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and was compounded by the defund the police movement.

“If you view this through the prism of time, you go back to 2021, we had a pretty significant departure of officers and there was a net loss of almost 500 officers,”  Strachan explained. “In 2022, there was another net loss of 100 officers, and then in 2023, we had a net gain of less than 100, but that was more than negated by population growth.”

Strachan says WASPC’s 2025 legislative priorities will focus on public safety as a core government function.

“As we go into 2025, we’ve got a governor-elect who made one of the main points of his campaign, a pledge to be very serious about police staffing and supporting police staffing,” said Strachan.

As reported by The Center Square, Governor-elect Bob Ferguson made public safety a central theme during his gubernatorial race.

“Both parties are coming together in looking for solutions to public safety as opposed to criticizing police and finding ways to put additional burdens on police,” said Strachan.

WASPC’s 2025 legislative priorities memo states, “We believe in balanced public safety laws that support the core functions of government in an environment where the men and women of law enforcement reflect and care for their communities while having the tools to care for victims in their pursuit of justice.”

The Center Square reached out to the Washington State Patrol for the latest on year-end recruiting numbers. 

State Patrol Communications Director Chris Loftis responded that it’s a story about the three R’s: recruitment, retention and retirement.

“Currently we are looking at 162 vacant ‘road trooper’ vacancies,” Loftis said via email. “We began seeing a large vacancy rate in the middle of the last decade when our compensation rates were lower than local agencies and we saw a significant number leave WSP to serve elsewhere.”

Loftis explained that WSP’s vacancy rate doubled in 2021 due to officers leaving the agency due to the requirement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

“The large ‘separation’ numbers for 2021 were reflective of the separations due to pandemic vaccination resistance, an issue that lingered into ’22 as well,” Loftis continued. “That also impacted us in resignations as many commissioned staff left before and after the separation mandate to go to other agencies and states that did not have vaccine requirements.”

The current challenge for WSP is the retirement window for commissioned staff.

“After [Sept. 11, 2001], there was a significant increase in law enforcement recruitment and hiring and as those individuals begin reaching their 25-year retirement eligibility benchmarks, we have larger and larger retirement numbers approaching,” said Loftis.

Strachan said recruiting bonuses and incentives for lateral hiring are not the most important part of the solution to the law enforcement shortage in Washington.

“Some communities are doing really well in staffing and consistently what I hear from the sheriffs and chiefs is that the people in those communities are supportive of law enforcement and the officers and that the deputies feel comfortable in doing their jobs,” he said. “It’s not really about money. People are making ultimate decisions on their employment, looking at is this an agency where the community supports the job I’m doing.”

FBI crime data released in September showed for the last five consecutive years when comparing Washington state to the national average, murders are 408% higher, vehicle thefts are higher by 144%, and burglaries, robberies and aggravated assaults are all higher since 2019.