More than 750 people who took public safety tests in 2021 indicated an interest in working for the Spokane Police Department. That included increased interest from women and people of color.
762 people who took public safety tests (PSTs) last year checked a box that signaled their interest in Spokane’s police force, the department said. That’s a jump of more than 300 over the last comparable year, 2019, according to statistics gathered by the department.
“The majority of them are here in Washington. We get some applicants that take [PSTs] in Idaho and some in California, but it’s primarily in Washington,” said Jacqui MacConnell, SPD’s director of strategic initiatives.
644 Washingtonians who took the PST signaled an interest in working for SPD; 39 were from Idaho and 19 from California. People from 27 states expressed an interest, according to the department.
In addition to the general uptick in interest, the PST sessions showed significant increases among people that are under-represented in the city’s current police force. The number of women who marked themselves as potential SPD candidates was 78, compared to 46 in 2019. Even greater jumps were seen among Black (48 in 2021, 12 in 2019) and Latino (90 in 2021, 29 in 2019) people interested in law enforcement careers.
At the same time, SPD is more involved in recruiting a diverse candidate pool through other means. With the aid of a grant from the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission, SPD officers will travel to diversity fairs in six states specifically to encourage interest in working for the agency.
Why more people showed interest in working in Spokane during last year’s PST sessions isn’t clear, MacConnell said, though she has a hypothesis. It’s possible that more face time with potential SPD candidates is moving the needle.
“The only thing I can attribute it to, possibly, is a change in our tactics for recruiting,” MacConnell said. “Because it’s really just in the last year or two that we’ve been sending officers out with essentially a recruitment booth at PST testing sites.”
SPD has also been recruiting on college campuses, speaking with interested students in criminal justice and athletic programs. But though it is casting a wide net, the Spokane Police Department also wants to draw some of its recruits locally.
“Understand also that it’s very important to recruit people from Spokane. There’s a benefit to that,” MacConnell said.
Diversifying the Spokane force will take time, MacConnell said. Targeted efforts to increase diversity likely will not bear fruit for at least a year. One benefit of a more diverse SPD is relatability and trust within the community, she said.
“Oftentimes, there are people in many communities that say, ‘Well, it would be nice to see an officer that looks like me,’ because then those people feel like the officer can relate to what they’re going through,” MacConnell said. “It’s approachability. It’s a comfort issue.”
Though the department is encouraged by the interest shown via PSTs, MacConnell says it’s hard to predict how many of the 762 applicants will end up ever wearing an SPD uniform. 671 of those people passed the PST. From there, applicants must fill out and submit paperwork through civil service. From that pool, SPD hires only one in ten candidates, MacConnell said. Successful recruits must also pass physical tests and attend police academy training.
Though the potential candidate group as expressed by the PSTs is smaller than comparable gauges of interest ten years ago, MacConnell said she thinks 2021’s numbers may indicate a revival of interest in law enforcement service. She also noted interest fluctuates from year to year.
