NYPD finds 4,500 potential recruits after lowering college credit requirement
Some 4,500 potential recruits for the New York City Police Department who couldn’t meet the old requirement of 60 college credits are now eligible to have their applications reconsidered after NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch lowered the standard to 24 credits, law enforcement sources told Newsday.
The sources, who didn’t want to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said the pool of potential recruits involves people who had taken the police test but weren’t able to satisfy the former 60 credit threshold.
But after Tisch announced last month that she was lowering the requirement to 24 credits in an effort to increase the pool applicants for the police academy, officials said they began to contact a large group of prior applicants who appear to meet the new threshold to see if they are still interested in being police officers, the sources said. In some cases, the applicants were asking to revive their applications, one of the police sources said.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, the largest police union representing thousands of officers, declined to comment on the subject.
An NYPD spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the subject. But last week Tisch, in testimony before the New York City Council, reiterated that the NYPD was in a staffing crisis with attrition and the lack of large numbers of recruits was driving the department to low levels of officers not seen in years.
Tisch noted that the old 60-credit requirement forced the NYPD to turn away 2,275 potential recruits in 2023, about 29% of applicants.
Including the latest police academy class that is yet to graduate, the NYPD has just under 34,000 officers, a sharp drop Tisch noted from the 37,000 seen in 2018. The NYPD hit a level about 40,000 officers just before Sept. 11, city records show.
“I will not sugarcoat it — the NYPD is in a hiring crisis,” Tisch acknowledged to the council. “It is not a budget problem, Mayor [Eric] Adams has given us all the resource that we need and has greenlit every [academy] class we wanted to bring in, but the applicants are just not there.”
Tisch has been shifting desk officers and other specialized personnel back to precincts and into the subways as a form of triage to get back to the basics of policing while struggling with a lack of personnel, something she said may not be fixed soon.
“We can’t change it in the short term but we hope to change it in the long term: we have to hire, hire, hire,” Tisch told council members.
To get more recruits into the academy, the law enforcement sources said the previous applicants were being contacted to stop the department from what Tisch said was a mad scramble for candidates. About 1,000 recruits began academy training earlier this year but it was unclear just how many would enter the next class, which has yet to be announced. Tisch described the recent academy classes as being “lumpy” in size.
“It is obvious they are hurting for candidates in New York,” said Christopher Herrmann, associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who added that lowering college requirements may be helpful in getting more potential recruits to the academy now.
But Herrmann thinks college-educated recruits make better officers. The lack of significant college preparation slows down the career progression of officers when they seek promotion, Herrmann said, adding that at his institution, a number of officers enroll to get degrees to help in career advancement.
Some 4,500 potential recruits for the New York City Police Department who couldn’t meet the old requirement of 60 college credits are now eligible to have their applications reconsidered after NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch lowered the standard to 24 credits, law enforcement sources told Newsday.
The sources, who didn’t want to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said the pool of potential recruits involves people who had taken the police test but weren’t able to satisfy the former 60 credit threshold.
But after Tisch announced last month that she was lowering the requirement to 24 credits in an effort to increase the pool applicants for the police academy, officials said they began to contact a large group of prior applicants who appear to meet the new threshold to see if they are still interested in being police officers, the sources said. In some cases, the applicants were asking to revive their applications, one of the police sources said.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, the largest police union representing thousands of officers, declined to comment on the subject.
An NYPD spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the subject. But last week Tisch, in testimony before the New York City Council, reiterated that the NYPD was in a staffing crisis with attrition and the lack of large numbers of recruits was driving the department to low levels of officers not seen in years.
Tisch noted that the old 60-credit requirement forced the NYPD to turn away 2,275 potential recruits in 2023, about 29% of applicants.
Including the latest police academy class that is yet to graduate, the NYPD has just under 34,000 officers, a sharp drop Tisch noted from the 37,000 seen in 2018. The NYPD hit a level about 40,000 officers just before Sept. 11, city records show.
“I will not sugarcoat it — the NYPD is in a hiring crisis,” Tisch acknowledged to the council. “It is not a budget problem, Mayor [Eric] Adams has given us all the resource that we need and has greenlit every [academy] class we wanted to bring in, but the applicants are just not there.”
Tisch has been shifting desk officers and other specialized personnel back to precincts and into the subways as a form of triage to get back to the basics of policing while struggling with a lack of personnel, something she said may not be fixed soon.
“We can’t change it in the short term but we hope to change it in the long term: we have to hire, hire, hire,” Tisch told council members.
To get more recruits into the academy, the law enforcement sources said the previous applicants were being contacted to stop the department from what Tisch said was a mad scramble for candidates. About 1,000 recruits began academy training earlier this year but it was unclear just how many would enter the next class, which has yet to be announced. Tisch described the recent academy classes as being “lumpy” in size.
“It is obvious they are hurting for candidates in New York,” said Christopher Herrmann, associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who added that lowering college requirements may be helpful in getting more potential recruits to the academy now.
But Herrmann thinks college-educated recruits make better officers. The lack of significant college preparation slows down the career progression of officers when they seek promotion, Herrmann said, adding that at his institution, a number of officers enroll to get degrees to help in career advancement.
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