Butler County’s top law enforcement officials expect 2021 will continue to be challenging as they seek to recruit new officers to their departments.
“It’s an exciting time, yet a very challenging one,” said Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs. “We’re excited about the law enforcement tax that was passed in August of 2020, yet we realize recruiting will be a great challenge.”
Law enforcement training academies that used to be full, with 20 to 30 students attending, now have fewer than 10, Dobbs said.
“The number of people wanting to go into law enforcement has been decreasing dramatically because of the negative attention brought to law enforcement in the past year,” Dobbs said.
Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley agreed.
“Since the events at Ferguson back in 2014, law enforcement has been very challenging, and the challenges seemed to have increased every year thereafter,” Whiteley explained. “It’s a nationwide trend; it is not specific to one area.
“The number of people wanting to go into law enforcement, with those challenges increasing year by year, have been decreasing down to a very small pool of applicants.”
At the time Whiteley was appointed chief in 2000, when the police department had openings, he said, “we would have 20 to 30, sometimes 40 people, apply, but with today’s climate, we are lucky if we get four or five.”
Whiteley said his department currently is short three officers.
“To recruit the type of officers that we want, and the public deserves, is going to be an extreme challenge,” Whiteley said. “We have been very proactive in trying to recruit minority candidates and/or female candidates and/or a combination thereof, but in that same context, we have larger departments, both state and federal, that are trying to recruit from the same pool.”
Dobbs said his department was able to hire personnel in 2020, but “it’s basically a matter of enticing people from other departments to join our department.
“ … We recruited four road officers from other jurisdictions and one investigator (in recent months), and we look to add more.”
Both Whiteley and Dobbs said it is going to take comparable and competitive salaries and benefits to keep applicants from going elsewhere.
Dobbs said he doesn’t believe the county can fill its deputy positions “at the rate of pay we have right now … the same can be said for the jail.
“We pay a little above minimum, $13 an hour, for one of the toughest jobs in law enforcement (corrections officer).”
Law enforcement agencies, Whiteley said, “depend on each other for help; we are all going to be pulling from the same pool of applicants. We will essentially be in competition with other agencies for the same person.”
There also is a nationwide trend of departments “seeing violent crime skyrocket because people are leaving law enforcement in droves,” Dobbs said. “Understaffing is a huge problem when I talk to many chiefs and sheriffs around the country.”
Many in law enforcement, Dobbs said, are going to the private sector.
“They are getting out of law enforcement all together, working somewhere they do not have to hear the negative comments on the national news, don’t have the stress, and who can blame them,” Dobbs said.
Whiteley agreed.
“With the negative news constantly about law enforcement, I can certainly understand why a young person looking for a career would be hesitant to expose himself or herself or even their family to the negativity of law enforcement at the current time,” Whiteley said.
With that being said, “generally in Southeast Missouri, I personally believe we have overwhelming support for law enforcement officers, be it state, county, city or even federal,” Whiteley said. “I’m very grateful that we have that type of support in our area.”
Dobbs said violent crime has “just skyrocketed.”
Whiteley attributes that increase in Southeast Missouri and Poplar Bluff to the “influx of heroin.
“Having seen some of the addicts that were having withdrawals from heroin, I have come to the conclusion it is the most addictive drug we have in this area. Due to those physical, plus mental, withdrawals, you are going to have violence to either, one, to get the drug or two, to get the money to buy the drug.”
Law enforcement, Whiteley said, is going to have to be proactive in prosecuting dealers.
“We are going to have to be proactive in helping the addicts and users, and we are going to have to be proactive in getting to our young kids before they get exposed and started down that pathway,” Whiteley said.
Statistically, with heroin, Whiteley said, “you’re going to either one, get caught and put in jail, or two, you’re going to get a bad batch of dope that has Fentanyl in it, and you’re going to die.
Whiteley said he is a “firm believer” that “educating our youth early will help reduce that cycle in the future.”