How to Improve Police Retention: Lessons From Officer Resignations

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

When conversations turn to police retention, leaders often point to a familiar set of pressures: pay that struggles to keep up, pensions that feel less certain, the growing demands of the job, or the strain of public scrutiny. To be fair, many leaders recognize that police retention is complex and increasingly tied to organizational issues. Still, a few common misconceptions tend to linger in these discussions.

Research consistently shows that these factors, while real, are not the primary drivers pushing officers out the door.

Officers are not leaving because they dislike police work or because they “can’t handle” it. In fact, many leave despite valuing the mission, the work, and the people they serve. What they struggle with is how that work is managed, supported, and led inside their agencies.

And when a few officers decide to leave, it rarely ends there. One resignation can trigger another, then another, until a department finds itself short-staffed, experience drained, and remaining officers carrying an ever-heavier load – like an open wound that keeps bleeding, weakening the department with each loss.

A recent study out of England puts empirical evidence behind what many officers have been saying for years.

The Study: Who Left and Why

The study, Voluntary resignations from the police service: the impact of organisational and occupational stressors on organisational commitment, was conducted by Sarah Charman and Stephanie Bennett.

The researchers distributed an online survey to 254 police officers who had voluntarily resigned from a medium-sized English police force between 2014 and 2019. 46 officers responded, resulting in an 18.1% response rate. The survey focused on understanding why officers chose to leave, what organizational and occupational factors influenced that decision, and whether anything might have led them to stay or return.

This wasn’t a department simply experiencing expected retirements. It was losing officers mid-career, at a time when recruitment was already declining and the estimated cost of training a single police constable was roughly £80,000 over two years.

Importantly, these were officers who valued policing. They liked the work. They believed in public service. They missed their colleagues after they left.

However, what finally pushed them out wasn’t the nature of the job, it was the agency behind it.

The Findings: What Actually Drives Police Retention

The researchers organized the findings into different groups, each answering a slightly different question about why officers left, how they felt at the point of leaving, and what (if anything) might have changed their decision.

1. What factors most influenced officers’ decisions to leave?

When officers were asked to identify their top three reasons for resigning, their responses clustered around four themes: organizational factors, organizational “injustice,” personal factors, and external factors.

Organizational Factors

The most common driver was organizational factors, cited by 50% of respondents. 36% of these centered on poor leadership and management across all levels: line supervisors, middle managers, and senior leadership. Officers described weak or inconsistent supervision, limited support, frequent forced moves between units, and chronic understaffing that made workloads feel unmanageable.

One officer explained:

“The force regularly forcibly moved you between teams and roles. This was through no fault of your own, but through poor demand planning”

16% of respondents also described a growing mismatch between what they expected policing to be and the reality they experienced, particularly around workload and organizational support.

Organizational Injustice

Closely related were issues of organizational ‘injustice’, cited by 24% of respondents. The most common concerns here were:

• Lack of promotion or professional development opportunities (45.8%)
• Lack of autonomy or voice in decision-making (29.2%)
• Bullying and harassment, often from supervisors or managers (25%)

As one officer put it:

“Total lack of value by the organisation as an individual or interest in individual strengths or experience.”

For many, this wasn’t about a single unfair incident. It was the cumulative effect of feeling unseen, unheard, and undervalued.

Personal factors

Personal factors were cited by 25% of respondents. The most common issues were difficulties balancing policing with caring responsibilities (children, other family members, or both) which highlighted how the job’s demands spill over into personal life. Officers also reported declining physical and mental health, but importantly, the study found that this stress was often tied less to traumatic incidents and more to organizational factors like heavy workloads, denied leave, and lack of flexibility. Chronic stress and fatigue from managing these pressures played a major role in their decisions to resign.

External Factors

Finally, external factors, such as alternative career opportunities or national politics, were the least influential overall, reinforcing that the strongest drivers of resignation were internal to the organization.

2. Was there a decisive moment that triggered the decision to leave?

Although resignation was usually the result of accumulated frustrations, 80.4% of officers said there was a specific event that ultimately pushed them to leave.

Nearly half (47.2%) said that decisive moment involved organizational injustice, most often a lack of autonomy or voice. Another 22.2% pointed to personal factors related to health or caring responsibilities, and 19.4% cited poor leadership.

One officer described their breaking point:

“I was working overtime on a case when my wife called to say our son was ill and may need to go to hospital. My line manager denied my leave…this was the defining moment. I knew I had to go.”

That single decision crystallized years of built-up strain.

3. How satisfied were officers at the point they left?

At the time of resignation, officers reported relatively high satisfaction with job security, but career development opportunities were rated lowest.

This matters because it shows officers were not leaving due to fear or instability. They were leaving because they saw no sustainable future where they could make an impact within the department.

4. What were the positives and negatives of leaving policing?

When asked about the positive aspects of leaving, responses fell into three areas:

• Personal benefits (35.9%), primarily improvements in mental and physical health
• Professional benefits (35.9%), including greater autonomy and career opportunities
• Work–life balance (28.3%)

When asked about the negative aspects, the most common losses were intrinsic, not financial:

• Missing the job itself (34.5%)
• Missing colleagues (31%)
• Missing teamwork (17.2%)
• Feelings of disappointment or failure (17.2%)

This distinction is critical. Officers weren’t running because they didn’t value the job, they were leaving because they felt the department no longer valued them.

5. What would have made officers reconsider leaving or come back?

More than half (56.5%) said they would not consider returning. However, 23.9% said they would reconsider, and 19.6% said maybe.

The factors most likely to change their minds were:

• Improved welfare and support
• Better career development opportunities
• Better work–life balance
• A healthier organizational culture

Notably, higher pay ranked near the bottom. Only 17% said salary increases would make them reconsider. Pay does matter, but it was not the primary factor driving resignation in this study.

The implication is clear: within this study, police retention is not primarily a compensation problem. It is an organizational and leadership problem.

6. Do Organizational Stressors Affect Different Groups of Officers in Different Ways?

The study also looked at how individual characteristics influenced officers’ experiences and reasons for resigning. Certain patterns emerged, even if demographics weren’t the primary drivers of turnover.

• Gender: Female officers were more likely than male officers to cite work hours, pay, and the impact on personal life as reasons for leaving.
• Caregiving responsibilities: Officers caring for children, adults, or both were more likely to report that the job affected their physical and mental health and that they had experienced discriminatory behavior or lack of support from managers. They were also more likely to consider returning if senior leadership changed.
• Education level: Officers with a degree reported leaving more often due to pay and career opportunities than those without a degree, reflecting different expectations or career trajectories.

These findings reinforce that while personal attributes shape how officers experience organizational stress, they do not fully explain turnover. Across demographics, organizational factors like leadership, autonomy, and support were consistently the strongest predictors of leaving.

What Can Agencies Do to Stop the Bleeding?

The study points to levers agencies already control if they choose to use them.

1. Strengthen first-line supervision Sergeants and lieutenants shape officers’ daily reality. Invest in supervisory training focused on workload management, communication, and decision-making. Hold supervisors accountable not just for outputs, but for how they treat and support their people.
2. Give officers real voice and autonomy Voice doesn’t require formal listening sessions, it requires action. Involve officers in pilot-testing new policies, allow discretion in how policies are applied, and clearly communicate which suggestions led to changes (and why others didn’t). Autonomy at the unit level builds trust faster than any town hall.
3. Manage workload transparently and realistically Acknowledge staffing gaps and adjust expectations accordingly. Prioritize calls and initiatives, reduce non-essential tasks, and stop pretending officers can absorb unlimited work without consequences.
4. Treat officers like people, not positions Be flexible during critical life moments. Approve reasonable leave, support caregivers, and apply policies consistently. Small decisions by supervisors often determine whether an officer stays or starts planning their exit.

Examples

Rapid City Police Department (South Dakota)

Facing staffing and retention challenges, Rapid City PD shifted its focus away from quick fixes and toward organizational culture and first-line supervision. Leadership emphasized officer wellness, reduced unnecessary workload, and invested in supervisors as the key drivers of daily experience. Department leaders explicitly framed culture, not pay, as the primary retention lever, and reported improved recruitment and retention outcomes as a result.

Albuquerque Police Department (New Mexico)

Albuquerque PD experienced elevated resignations in the early 2020s, then saw year-over-year declines in voluntary departures after implementing targeted police retention strategies. These included retention incentives for experienced officers, clearer career pathways, and a pre-academy program to better prepare recruits for the realities of policing. Department leadership credited these changes with stabilizing staffing and improving long-term retention.

Final Thought

This study reinforces a hard but hopeful message.

Officers still care deeply about policing. They still value service, teamwork, and making a difference. What erodes commitment isn’t the badge, it’s the slow accumulation of organizational stressors that undermine trust, support, and autonomy. (For more on how organizational stress impacts officer mental health and wellbeing, see my article on police burnout.)

The Hidden Cause of Police Burnout and Distress

New research shows trauma isn’t the main cause of police burnout and distress, your agency is. See how leadership, systems, and workload drive officer mental health.

Police retention doesn’t start with bonuses or billboards. It starts with leadership decisions made every single day and whether officers believe their organization has their back when it matters most.

Focusing on these organizational levers gives agencies the best chance to improve retention and support officers before frustration turns into resignation.

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Carlee Ruiz

Carlee Ruiz is the founder of PoliceResearchHub, a platform that turns academic research into practical insights for law enforcement. She brings seven years of experience as a crime analyst and justice researcher, with a focus on evidence based policing, gun violence prevention, and public safety strategy. Carlee currently works as a researcher at National Policing Institute, where she supports evaluations of law enforcement programs and criminal justice initiatives across the country. Through PoliceResearchHub, she aims to make research easier to understand and more useful for the people doing the work on the ground.