CLEVELAND — In Gregory Pollard’s 33 years as a Cleveland Police Officer, he never imagined departments would struggle with staff shortages like many are today.
“This is really disheartening; back in my day I think there were 5000 people to take the test,” Pollard said.
Now, state lawmakers are considering a bill to lower the minimum age to serve as a police officer; House Bill 84 would lower the age from 21 to 18.
“I taught in the Fleet Academy, you know, and there's a lot of things you have to instill in 21-year-old that maybe an 18-year-old is not really mature enough to understand,” Pollard said.
The goal is to increase applicants and hiring; the struggle to hire is something that News 5 has been reporting on extensively.
The shortage of officers hasn’t spared the Lorain Police Department either.
"We obviously want the highest quality of candidate, but at the same time we also want to be able to fill the vacancies that arise and in order to do that you need candidates," said Lorain Police Lt. Jacob Miller.
Miller believes the legislation change could be beneficial, but it will take some work to ensure younger candidates are truly ready.
Akron Police Capt. Chris Brewer echoes similar sentiments.
“It eliminates some of the drop off that we see between people who are interested in a career in law enforcement in high school, but then you have a gap of three years before they can actually join a police department, and we struggle to keep people engaged during that period,” Brewer said.
The bill is still in House committee hearings and has a while before it is voted on, but some people like Pollard aren’t fully convinced that this is the solution to the officer shortage.
“It is very questionable,” said Pollard. “You have to really go through a lot to make sure that these individuals are going to be stable.”
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