Brian O’Hara has witnessed department fallout happen in real time. He’s watched officers leaving in waves, taking with them decades of institutional knowledge, neighborhood familiarity, and hard-won operational competency. Mass personnel loss in a police department is a structural crisis that compounds on itself, because the officers who remain are often the least experienced and the least equipped to absorb the organizational strain that departures create.
When a department loses a significant share of its workforce in a compressed period, the consequences reach well outside shift coverage and overtime budgets. The reason for mass departure could range from retirements to resignations or terminations, but the impact is always far-reaching.
Since 2020, departments nationwide have seen unprecedented attrition driven by civil unrest, public scrutiny, policy changes, and a competitive labor market. Some lost fifteen to twenty percent of sworn personnel in a single year, while others lost experienced supervisors disproportionately, stripping patrol units of essential mid-level leadership. Stabilizing a department after that scale of loss, without abandoning the reforms that may have accelerated departures, is one of the defining challenges in contemporary policing.
Diagnosing the Damage Before Attempting the Fix
The instinct in a staffing crisis is to move quickly toward recruitment, which, while understandable, can outpace the department’s capacity to absorb new officers responsibly. Before recruitment can be effective, leadership must conduct an honest assessment of what has actually been lost in institutional capacity.
Answering the tough questions well requires data, candor, and a willingness to acknowledge that certain functions may need to be temporarily scaled back or restructured while the department rebuilds. O’Hara is clear about the danger of skipping this step.
“You cannot stabilize what you haven’t accurately diagnosed,” he says. “Departments that rush to fill seats without understanding causes risk exacerbating the problem as new officers may not be sufficiently prepared or supported for the challenges they will inevitably face.”
Retention as a Stabilization Strategy
Recruitment draws the most attention in a staffing crisis, but retention is where stabilization really begins. Every officer who stays is one fewer vacancy to fill and one more unit of institutional knowledge that is preserved. Those serious about stabilization invest in understanding why people are leaving police departments.
Compensation can be a factor, but it is rarely the only one. Officers who leave typically cite workloads that are unsustainable, leadership they no longer trust, or a sense that the department no longer values what they contribute. Addressing those concerns requires supervisors who are trained to lead people under stress as well as transparent communication from command staff about where the department is headed, and clear signals that the organization is investing in its own future. When officers believe their department has a plan, retention improves.
Rebuilding the Supervisory Layer
Perhaps the most consequential effect of mass personnel loss is the erosion of the supervisory tier as experienced sergeants and lieutenants are often the first to leave. They have the tenure to retire and the reputation to land private-sector roles. In some cases, they bear the frustration with institutional change that makes departure feel like relief.
The absence creates a leadership vacuum that affects every officer below them. O’Hara argues that rebuilding the supervisory layer requires a different approach to simply promoting from within on an accelerated timeline.
“Promoting people who lack sufficient supervisory training is how you turn a staffing problem into a leadership problem,” he says. “You need supervisors who are ready to lead under pressure, not just promoting whoever is next in line.”
Leadership development must precede promotion. Structured mentorship and scenario-based training prepare officers before they assume supervisory roles. Lateral transfers offer another avenue, though integrating outside hires requires deliberate onboarding that communicates the department’s culture and reform commitments, not just its policies.
Maintaining Reform Commitments Under Pressure
One of the most politically fraught dimensions of stabilization is the pressure to roll back reform in the name of operational necessity. When a department is short-staffed and struggling, critics of reform are quick to argue that the changes drive people away, and reversing them will bring people back.
At times, that argument contains a kernel of truth. Reforms that were implemented poorly, communicated badly, or rolled out without officer buy-in can generate unnecessary attrition, but the broader claim that accountability and reform are incompatible with a functioning, well-staffed department is not supported by evidence.
Departments that have implemented consent decrees, civilian oversight, and use-of-force restrictions have, in a number of cases, stabilized their workforce and improved public trust in the police department simultaneously. The key is implementation quality.
“Rebuilding and reforming are not necessarily competing goals, but you have to be strategic and intentional as you implement change,” says O’Hara. “If you embrace one but not the other, you will inevitably fail.”
The Role of Community in Organizational Recovery
A department in crisis cannot stabilize in isolation. The community it serves is both an audience for its recovery and a participant in it. Residents who have lost confidence in their police department are less likely to cooperate with investigations, report crimes, or support the budget allocations that fund training and staffing improvements. Rebuilding that cooperation, even partially or incrementally, creates the conditions under which stabilization becomes possible.
Community leaders, faith institutions, and civic organizations can play the role of genuine partners in communicating that the department is changing, holding leadership accountable for following through, and creating the kind of public legitimacy that makes the work of policing more sustainable for the officers doing it.
Stabilization, in its fullest sense and including the internal processes, is a negotiation between an institution and the public it has an obligation to serve. The terms of that negotiation are shaped every day by the credibility of the people leading the department.
Brian O’Hara is a law enforcement consultant with more than two decades of experience across two major U.S. police departments, including service as Newark’s Director of Public Safety and as Minneapolis Police Chief. He specializes in crisis response, organizational reform, and consent decree implementation. O’Hara holds a graduate certificate in criminal justice from the University of Virginia and is the father of two sons.
Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional, legal, or expert advice. Views expressed are those of the contributor and should not be relied upon as guidance for specific situations.
