District of Crime: What happened to DC’s shrinking police force?

The Metropolitan Police Department is facing a critical shortage of officers.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced earlier this month that the MPD had lost 300 to 400 officers over the past three to four years. She lamented the fact that there were few officers in training and blamed “policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers.” Former Police Chief Robert J. Contee III agrees — at a March 31 city council hearing, he gave a bleak report of the state of the MPD.

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“Mayor Bowser’s priority for ensuring sufficient police service to the city is for MPD to be able to hire as many officers as possible to offset the drastic drop in staffing over the past 30 months,” Contee said. “We are currently at the lowest staffing level for the department in at least the past 50 years. Since the end of [fiscal] ’20, MPD has had a net loss of nearly 450 sworn members. Since the retirement bubble started in 2014, the department is down more than 600 officers.

“We are no longer in a space where debating the maximum size of the police force is necessary or productive,” he continued. “Absent significant shifts in national employment levels, the environment for law enforcement, or the interest of younger generations in long-term government careers, MPD staffing may not recover for more than a decade.”

Bowser has said that she wants the MPD to have 4,000 officers by 2031. The MPD predicts that according to current trends, the department will have 3,279 sworn members at the end of fiscal 2023, and just 3,131 sworn members at the end of fiscal 2024.

Washington, D.C., has resorted to a number of incentives to attract new officers, including a $20,000 signing bonus, a housing stipend, and tuition reimbursement. Despite this, recruiting numbers remain unsustainable.

Conservatives have blamed left-wing policies for the decline of police forces across the country, arguing that a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs harms the integrity of the institution. Whether true or not, Contee lessened the blow of the MPD’s dismal recruitment figures by touting the department’s progress with DEI.

Immediately following his report of the crashing recruitment numbers, Contee brought up “our 30 X 30 commitment to have women make up 30% of our recruits by 2030. I am pleased that we have met that initial goal — 32% of our recruits over the past 12 months have been women — and will continue to work to build on the progress.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion is not always recognized as a business imperative across organizations and agencies, but it is here at MPD,” he said later. “A strong DEI foundation can help to strengthen equity and cross-cultural understanding while combating discrimination. This, in turn, fosters a positive working environment that supports retention as well as recruitment. The mayor’s budget will support DEI managers and compliance and training specialists who will identify and implement DEI strategies and programs that also foster employee satisfaction and retention.”

The genesis of the MPD’s hiring woes can be traced back to the reforms brought forth following national unrest over the death of George Floyd. In response, the D.C. Council followed through with calls to defund the police, cutting its budget. The MPD said the cuts forced a hiring freeze, resulting in the department bleeding about 280 officers over 18 months, the Washington Post reported in 2022. It has continued to bleed officers ever since.

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A rise in homicides and other violent crimes has largely killed sentiment calling for any further reductions in the size of the police force, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told the outlet. Despite this, some reformists are still pushing for further cuts in police funding.

“D.C.’s current approach to public safety is failing,” Ahoefa Ananouko of the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. told city lawmakers at a budget hearing in 2022, the Washington Post reported. She argued that expanding the number of police risks “destabilizing communities, doubling down on mass incarceration, and perpetuating systemic racism and trauma.”