The number of law enforcement officers in the state has steadily decreased since the Wisconsin Department of Justice started tracking it in 2008. Efforts to reverse that trend may be working, experts say.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

Reversing a slide of more than a decade, the total number of law enforcement officers in Wisconsin climbed by more than 4% in the past year, according to figures from the state Department of Justice.

The department counted 13,354 officers at the end of 2024 compared to 12,788 at the end of 2023. That number excludes those who primarily work in a jail.

Wisconsin may be following the national trend. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, law enforcement agencies reported a year-over-year increase in total sworn staffing,” according to a study released in 2024 by the Police Executive Research Forum, a national membership organization of law enforcement executives. For years, departments have been losing officers to retirement and resignation faster than they can replace them with new recruits, a group that also has been shrinking.

Patrick Solar, an associate professor of criminal justice at UW-Platteville and a former police chief, said he has noticed an upward trend in students interested in a law enforcement career lately.

He attributed that to several things, including the “lessening of the war on cops.”

“People are becoming much more interested in maintaining order than in social justice issues,” Solar wrote in an email. “Anti-police activism is diminishing.”

He also noted that pay and benefit increases have been dramatic in some places, as cities and counties scramble to fill public safety positions.

“I point my students to agencies paying $100,000 or more” per year,” he said.

In Wisconsin, police officers who have already been through the academy and have their certification start at about $67,000 per year in Madison, and at about $64,000 a year in cities like Milwaukee and Wausau.

Solar also noted law enforcement agencies are using more sophisticated recruitment efforts, including promotion through videos and social media.

The Wausau Police Department hired a part-time community service officer to make videos for the web telling the stories of its officers, said Deputy Chief Todd Baeten.

“That was a game changer for us,” he said.

Those stories include officers talking about their hardest days. The idea is to give potential job candidates a good idea of what they will be doing on the job at the Wausau Police Department.

“This isn’t all sunshine and roses all the time,” Baeten said. “Come apply with us, but also be aware that this can be a really difficult job.”

The idea is to help new hires succeed in the job, and also discourage those who might not be a good fit while hopefully decreasing turnover.

The city of Wausau now employs a full-time videographer, who works out of the police department, to produce original content for the police department and other city agencies.

Even after recently adding two new officer positions, the Wausau Police Department currently has all 81 of its slots filled, Baeten said.

The extra effort in promotion is necessary because hiring officers is harder than it once was. The number of applicants for open police positions in Wausau is about 10% of what it was 20 years ago, Baeten estimated.

Fewer applicants can result in less competent recruit officers, Solar said.

“In the same way that you would want a qualified, experienced, and expertly skilled physician seeing to your health care needs, you want the most qualified police officers possible working the streets and wielding the power and authority vested in that position,” he said.

Cities are also increasingly using more targeted emergency response, rather than sending only cops to every 911 call. Several cities pair crisis counselors with an officer to respond to mental health calls. And some cities, like Madison and Milwaukee, employ non-police emergency response teams, consisting of mental health professionals and also paramedics. Allowing police to focus on their main mission — crime fighting and prevention — will help with retaining officers, Solar said.

But it’s unclear if the increase in law enforcement officers both nationally and in Wisconsin is a reverse of the trend, or a statistical blip, said Meghan Stroshine, a social and cultural sciences professor at Marquette University who studies policing.

While law enforcement agencies of all sizes have increased their officer hirings recently, resignations and retirements remain elevated compared to 2019, before the pandemic, she noted.

“It’s hard to say yet whether the uptick in officers will continue. It’s too early to call,” Stroshine wrote in an email. “Individual departments are turning the corner at different rates; many departments are still finding it challenging to attract and retain officers.”

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.