CHP moves hiring to fast lane

Agency has sworn in 600 officers this year as other departments struggle with attrition.

- BY LIBOR JANY

For all the talk of recruitment struggles at the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, some local agencies are finding that hiring new officers has gotten easier.

Take the California Highway Patrol, which in November graduated a class of 146 officers from its academy in West Sacramento. The statewide agency, which mainly polices traffic violations on freeways and oversees state property, has sworn in more than 600 new officers this year a total that many departments would envy.

While citing many of the same reasons that experts have given for why fewer people are going into law enforcement continued scrutiny over officer misconduct, relatively low pay compared with other less dangerous professions, and a general lack of interest in long careers in government service CHP Commissioner Robin Johnson said that some of the agency's recruitment problems were internal.

For instance, she said, the agency for many years resisted outsourcing its background check process, partly because of the cost, but also to avoid going against tradition that said the process should be handled in-house. As a result, the roles were filled by officers who had had to juggle "other duties besides background investigations" thereby prolonging the time it took to review an applicant's background, she said.

An internal analysis found that roughly half of applicants were dropping out during background checks, she said.

Now, the CHP uses a third-party company that Johnson said has significantly sped up the process for new recruits. The agency also moved from a paper application to an online form that allowed recruits to track the process and stay in regular contact with recruiters.