By George Hunter
The Detroit News
DETROIT — The Detroit Police Department , which less than three years ago was hemorrhaging officers at a rate of about one per day, has filled 98% of its sworn officer positions, Police Chief Todd Bettison said Friday.
There were 2,630 officers on the force as of Friday, with 2,673 budgeted positions, Bettison said. Since January 2023, the department has hired 666 officers, with a net gain of 339 during that time due to attrition.
Bettison said with most positions filled, he plans to beef up details that deal with quality of life issues, particularly the Vice Enforcement, Traffic Enforcement, Narcotics and Missing Persons units.
“I want to make sure we have enough detectives to investigate the kind of things the community wants us to focus on,” said Bettison. “Yes, we still need to investigate the violent crimes, but there are burglaries, retail fraud from businesses, people blowing through stop signs, drag racing, missing folks — we want to make sure we listen to what the community’s concerns are.”
Bettison, whose appointment as permanent police chief was approved by the Detroit City Council in a 9-0 vote on Tuesday, credited the staffing levels to a five-year contract that was announced in September 2022 and took effect the following year. The pact increased starting annual salaries for officers from $43,000 to $53,000.
“Absolutely, the contract has been the reason we’re getting so many officers; I can say that confidently,” Bettison said. “Since the contract, we’ve had 205 people who had left the department and requested to come back. So far, we’ve allowed 64 to come back, and another 19 are in the pipeline.”
In November, Detroit police officials announced they had put 30 officers, most of whom had returned to DPD from other departments, on administrative duty after learning they weren’t certified by the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards.
Bettison said Friday most of those officers have been certified.
“The majority of those officers have their MCOLES licenses activated,” he said. “There are a few we’re still working on getting certified, but for the most part, that issue has been resolved.”
Last month, 39 students graduated from the Detroit Police Academy . Bettison said there were 137 recruits in the academy as of Friday. A class of 20 is scheduled to graduate March 21 , with subsequent graduation ceremonies scheduled for May and June.
The police department has filled 760 of 823 non-sworn positions, such as dispatcher and Real Time Crime Center analyst, Bettison said.
Detroit’s hiring boon comes as other police departments in Michigan are having a difficult time attracting recruits. A University of Michigan study released in September found 72% of the 1,800 Michigan communities surveyed reported difficulty hiring officers, with 48% saying they had trouble retaining them.
The exodus of officers from Detroit had been a problem for years, reaching a frenzy in 2022, when the department was losing an average of one per day. In 2015, with the city recovering from filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history two years earlier, there were fewer officers patrolling Detroit than at any time since the 1920s. Following the 2013 bankruptcy, the police department absorbed the departure of 37% of its workforce in three years.
Detroit is one of the few municipalities in Michigan that pays for officer training. Other departments require candidates to foot the bill for Michigan Coalition on Law Enforcement Standards training, which state officials estimate can run from about $6,000 to $10,000.
Candidates often would take the free training and then bolt for higher-paying jobs in the suburbs. For years, Detroit officials complained about representatives from other police agencies showing up at the Detroit Police Academy to recruit officers as soon as they graduated.
Although the available positions are almost all full, Bettison said the department will continue aggressively recruiting new officers.
“We have a lot of people eligible to retire, so when you have a department this big, you’re in a constant state of hiring and advertising,” he said.
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