Police Chief Lawrence Weathers said his department is gradually recovering from the drop in recruits seen around the start of the pandemic and the racial justice protests. Just before those events, in 2019, the Lexington Police department saw 472 applicants. In 2023, that number was up to 873 applicants.
Weathers said, while salary is part of the picture, the department also needed to recognize that it’s “not the police department of yesteryear.”
"In the past couple years, policing has kind of been pigeonholed as 'this is what past policing is,' and that's our fault because we didn't get out there and tell them what policing is now," Weathers said. "We're doing that now and I think we're seeing some of the things that don't exactly match up to what our younger applicants are looking for, so we've changed some of that."
Other public safety officials spoke to the issue, including Director of Community Corrections Scott Colvin, who said corrections departments across the country hit historic lows in staffing in 2022, going “beyond critical.” He said the numbers are recovering but the problem isn’t solved. Colvin said it’s going to take a “bellwether” change to get the profession back on a solid footing.
