CHP Credits Internal Changes for 2025 Surge in Officer Recruitment

LOS ANGELES — For all the talk of recruitment struggles at the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, some local agencies are finding that hiring new officers has gotten easier.

Take the California Highway Patrol, which in November graduated a class of 146 officers from its academy in West Sacramento. The statewide agency, which mainly polices traffic violations on freeways and oversees state property, has sworn in more than 600 new officers this year — a total that many departments would envy.

While citing many of the same reasons that experts have given for why fewer people are going into law enforcement — continued scrutiny over officer misconduct, relatively low pay compared with other less dangerous professions, and a general lack of interest in long careers in government service — CHP Commissioner Robin Johnson said that some of the agency's recruitment problems were internal.

For instance, she said, the agency for many years resisted outsourcing its background check process, partly because of the cost, but also to avoid going against tradition that said the process should be handled in-house. As a result, the roles were filled by officers who had had to juggle "other duties besides background investigations" — thereby prolonging the time it took to review an applicant's background, she said.

An internal analysis found that roughly half of applicants were dropping out during background checks, she said.

Now, the CHP uses a third-party company that Johnson said has significantly sped up the process for new recruits. The agency also moved from a paper application to an online form that allowed recruits to track the process and stay in regular contact with recruiters.

The outside company does "the core of the background and then our employees are responsible for finalizing and doing the final interviews," Johnson said. The switch, she said, has allowed CHP to move more quickly to make conditional offers to qualified candidates — giving it an edge over other agencies. As a result, the number of applicants who went through the background process jumped from about 1,500 in fiscal year 2021-2022 to 4,500 last year, she said.

The CHP has also revamped its marketing strategy.

Its recruitment pitch was increasingly tailored to try to connect with a new generation of would-be officers, who unlike their predecessors "may not have necessarily set out to embark on a law enforcement career," Johnson said.

"I think the important thing to a lot of people are money and [flexible] schedules," she said.

Which is why the agency's recruitment ads have emphasized not only the $122,000 annual starting salaries for new hires, but also the numerous unique assignments and opportunities for advancement, she said: "You can fly a plane, ride a bike, ride a motorcycle, have a dog."

The agency's November class was its biggest in years, and followed a class of 130 new officers that graduated in August. Even accounting for the fact that it graduates about half as many classes a year as the LAPD, those numbers are more than double the Los Angeles force.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told The Times that replenishing the department's depleted ranks remains among his top priorities.

The department, like other agencies across the nation, has struggled to keep pace with attrition, and these hiring difficulties come as the 2026 World Cup and Olympic Games loom as massive security challenges. LAPD officials also say short-staffing has cost the city millions on overtime — and could potentially put it on the hook for costlier future payouts.

For several weeks earlier this year, the department shrunk to just over 8,600 sworn members — its lowest head count in decades. McDonnell has said in the past that the department's best recruiters are its own officers, but that many of them were unwilling to vouch for the department amid complaints about stress and burnout, a lack of support from upper management and the poor condition of stations and vehicles.

On an optimistic note, he said, recent increases in recruit applications suggest that people are still interested in joining the LAPD — touting the early success of the department's own new recruitment campaign, nicknamed "LAPD Unrivaled."

But McDonnell said that police and city officials must work together to address a slow, fragmented hiring process that has throttled recruitment, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Many "solid" potential recruits end up dropping out of consideration and leaving for other agencies out of frustration after waiting months to hear back, he said in a podcast interview this year.

The LAPD relies on the city's Personnel Department for background checks, but that department also has in recent years struggled with staffing issues. A recent study found that tensions between the two departments has only made matters worse. The backlog that has developed has become so severe that for months Police Academy classes have averaged just over 30 recruits — down from an average of 50 to 60 just a few years ago, the chief said.

Earlier this year, Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive order to streamline the recruitment process, and department officials say it is now showing positive results. A recent class of 56 recruits started their training at the Police Academy — the largest class in the last five years, said Capt. Michael Bland, an LAPD spokesman.

"We have a lot of promise for the future," Bland said.

The region's other major law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, must also weather recruiting challenges.

Like other big-city agencies, the Sheriff's Department has had to contend with a recruitment bubble caused by pandemic-induced hiring freezes and now faces tougher competition for top candidates from other suburban law enforcement agencies, as well as the private sector, according to Sheriff Robert Luna. With Metro Transit expected to create its own police force, competition for the local pool of recruits will only grow in years to come, he said.

But there are signs that times are changing with his department, Luna said, starting with the growing number of recruits that graduate every month. When he first took the job, the average academy graduating class was in the high-30s and the department was receiving roughly 190 applications per week, he said. Since then, applications have jumped to about 300 per week, he said.

"My last two or three classes are well over 50: 55, 57. And they're incrementally getting larger," he boasted. "It wasn't just about getting more applications, it was about getting the right applications in our very focused campaign."

The agency has placed 400 new deputies over its eight academy classes since the start of the fiscal year in July — compared to the LAPD's 240. In the same period last year, the Sheriff's Department graduated 257 new deputies.

According to data from the state's Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the LAPD, CHP and the Sheriff's Department saw recruitment dip significantly around the outbreak of the pandemic. But while the LAPD's attrition has outpaced recruitment in every fiscal year since 2016, the CHP saw its numbers pick back up starting in 2024, when it hired 655 new officers while losing 420. The Sheriff's Department's hiring numbers have also rebounded in recent years — reflecting a statewide trend.

Whether the LAPD can copy the success of the CHP and Sheriff's Department remains to be seen. Already, the issue of expanding the city's police force has become a fraught political issue.

Critics say that throwing money at the LAPD has done little to make a dent in its recruitment struggles and has come at the expense of other basic services such as park maintenance and street paving. They argue that with the dwindling number of cops, officials need to start investing more in community-led efforts that they say prioritize prevention over punishment and would go further in reducing crime. They worry, however, that it's more likely the shortage of officers will lead to heavier investments in surveillance and other police technology — tools they say will only further the historical harms caused by overbearing policing in Black and brown neighborhoods.

The department drew the ire of some city councilmembers after they learned the LAPD was on track to blow past its budget allocation by adding 410 officers by summer 2026. The issue boiled over at a tense City Council meeting earlier this month, where city leaders rebuffed the mayor's request to significantly increase police hiring. McDonnell warned them that more manpower is required to maintain public safety.

"I'm not an expert on where to find the money throughout the city, but I can tell you … if you knew what I know about the potential threats in the years ahead then we wouldn't be having this conversation today," he said.

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