Seattle Police Lose Officers Despite New $5 Million Recruitment, Retention Plan

The Seattle Police Department is seeing small improvements in its recruitment compared to last year, but there is still a net loss of officers so far in 2023. From the beginning of 2023 through March 16, Seattle Police have hired 19 officers, which is nine more than last year’s year-to-date total of 10 hires. Notably, during the department’s presentation to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on March 28, officer separation statistics were left out. However, a version of the presentation available online reveals that there was a net loss of 6 officers through March 16, 2023. That is an improvement over the 2022 year-to-date net loss of 28, but is not on pace to reach the city’s goal of a net gain of 500 officers in the next five years.