Columbus Police lost almost 80 officers in two years. Here’s how it’s bouncing back

After years of sharply declining officer enrollment numbers and skyrocketing homicide rates, the Columbus Police Department has contracted enough officers to land them in a “very, very good place.”

Deputy Chief of Administrative Services Roderick Graham said the key to the department’s success was simple: opening its eyes to new potential recruitment areas.

One of the largest groups of CPD recruits consists of former police officers, both in Columbus and around the state. Graham said there are many benefits to hiring people with prior law enforcement experience.

“They’re already Georgia POST certified,” Graham said. “That expedites them getting hired, as well as getting them on the street.”

Columbus boasted 380 sworn officers at the end of 2020, but the department lost 77 officers over the next two years. Despite beginning 2023 with just over 300 officers, enrollment has increased to 360 as of June 1, 2024.

The effort to recoup their lost numbers entails looking to nearby states, such as Mississippi and Alabama for candidates.

The Georgia POST, or Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, regulates police training in the state. CPD doesn’t let the state border limit its recruitment opportunities.,

“We also started recruiting individuals from other states that already have some form of POST certification, and their certification is accepted by the Georgia POST,” Graham said. “They have to take some additional classes and some additional training, but it expedites the individual being able to get to their FTO.”

An FTO is a Field Training Officer, who is charged with overseeing the real-life training of new recruits after they’ve completed the academy. For the average new recruit, the entire training process takes between nine months and a year. For military recruits, though, the process can be expedited to ensure they have a job by the time they finish their service.

“One of the things we’re most proud of is what we refer to as the career skill program,” Graham said. “It deals with individuals who are in the military. However, they have already made their mind up that they’re going to get out of the military, so that allows us to recruit them.”

When CPD recruits a member of the military through the career skill program, it can put the recruit into pre-academy training up to six months before they are discharged. They do the mandatory police preparation and get out of the military just in time for FTO training, the last step before they become officers.

A longtime problem

The police department has had trouble with officer retention since 2016, according to Ledger-Enquirer reporting from 2023. Low pay and officer morale were the two biggest reasons for officers leaving, with several employees citing issues stemming from the leadership of then-chief Freddie Blackmon.

When Blackmon left CPD in April 2023, his replacement, Stoney Mathis, said the first issue he was going to tackle within the department was morale. He outlined steps to increase employee retention, like raising pay by $5,000 for 911 dispatchers and police officers and eliminating punishments for minor infractions.

Retention remained a significant issue for CPD through October 2023, when it employed less than two-thirds of a 488-person full force. The department is focused on slow growth and has established enrollment goals for the next two years, wanting to employ 410 officers by the end of 2025 and 422 by the end of 2026.

The goals are far from current enrollment numbers, which show 360 officers on the force at the end of May, but Graham said the department is capable of pulling in the recruits.

“One of the biggest things for recruiting, though, and what many people don’t think about is word of mouth by the officers and how the officers feel about the department,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a growth that’s primarily due to the way that the officers already in place feel and talk about the department.”

Graham said community policing and engagement events are crucial for the department’s continued development.

“We have our community policing officers who are out there interacting with the public,” he said. “And when they do that, we run across people who want to be a police officer because they have a duty. They have this duty to serve and protect.”