Revisiting the Ferguson effect: Law enforcement perception of recruitment in the post George Floyd era

Abstract

Mainstream media have argued that prolonged and harsh criticism of police officers prompted by death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson police has had a major negative effect on the US law enforcement community. This phenomenon, known as the “Ferguson effect”, was exacerbated in the following years by the availability of other violent public–police interactions propagated through social media. The academic literature found almost no evidence that the Ferguson effect had any impact on crime rates and only limited evidence that it resulted in de-policing in the United States. Missing from this conversation is research on how the Ferguson effect impacted the ability of police departments to maintain staffing levels and recruit new officers nationwide. This article fills this gap in the research literature by examining levels of officer retention and recruitment from an organizational perspective. Police chiefs in Texas were surveyed about their perceptions of the Ferguson effect on department recruitment and retention efforts. The results found that the Ferguson effect is related to increased difficulty in officer recruitment but its impact is relatively small when compared with traditional recruitment challenges such as limited budgets and competitive job markets. The findings also reported no impact of the Ferguson effect on police departments’ retention issues. This article discusses these findings within the scope and context of George Floyd's death and current civil rights issues in the United States.

Turnover in Large US Police Agencies Following the George Floyd Protests

“…1 In more contemporary times, similar moments of increased/widespread public concern about policing have raised questions about the effects of external events on police recruitment. Survey-based research of Texas police chiefs following the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests suggested respondents were concerned that their recruitment efforts would be negatively impacted (Copeland et al, 2022). However, the study was limited to cross-sectional, perceptual data.…”

How do law enforcement agencies recruit diverse applicants? Analysis of digital recruiting materials

“…Larger LEAs across the US and in other countries report staffing shortages that have prevented them from achieving authorized strength [e.g., San Francisco Police Department (Shanks, 2023), Pittsburgh Police Department (Vellucci, 2023), Phoenix Police Department (Golightly, 2023), territorial police forces throughout the UK (The Crime Report, 2021), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; Cottrill, 2017)]. The reasons for these staffing shortfalls vary; it has been associated with heightened levels of police–community tensions in light of high-profile examples of police abuse of authority (Morrow et al, 2019), competitive job markets (Copeland et al, 2022), and person characteristics correlated with demographic cohorts (especially millennials and later) (Langham, 2017). Given the general, and gender-specific, struggle to recruit qualified candidates, LEAs need a better evidence base to identify effective recruiting strategies.…”