DENVER (KDVR) — According to one study, Colorado’s police recruitment needs should be relatively easier to fill than in other states.
Colorado police departments have had a tough time filling vacancies in the early years of the 2020s. Depending on the location, police departments are short of their authorized strength by hundreds of recruits.
Financial resource site WalletHub analyzed U.S. states’ relative rankings according to federal data. Researchers derived overall scores by measuring police employment and compensation rates and growth potential, training requirements and associated state laws, and job hazards and protections.
Colorado has the seventh-highest overall score, between Ohio and Washington.
Colorado scored highly both for police opportunity and pay and for law enforcement training requirements, sixth and eighth, respectively.
For job hazards and protections, however, Colorado scored 33rd. This category includes misconduct laws, body camera laws, use of force laws and decertification requirements, police deaths and injuries rates, crime rates, homicide clearance rates and road safety, among other items.
WalletHub’s study finds best states in which to be a police officer are California, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Maryland and Illinois. Most of the five worst are in the South – Arkansas, Alaska, West Virginia, Kentucky and Nevada.