The Chicago Police Department recently became the latest local law enforcement agency in the country to announce it's lowering hiring standards to address a staffing shortage.
CPD is specifically axing its college credit requirement for certain candidates, CNN reported. The department, like several others in the US, are facing Covid-19 pandemic-related staffing shortage. The nation's and city's current social justice reckoning, officials said, is turning potential new candidates away from applying.
According to the outlet, over the four months that Chicago offered its police entrance exam last year, around 3,800 people took it, compared to the 22,000 people who've sat for the exam in years prior.
The announcement came last week from Police Superintendent David Brown who said that candidates with two years of military or peace officer experience, or spent three years as a corrections officer, social worker, worked in healthcare, a trade or education would no longer be required to have at least 60 college credit hours.
Chicago isn't alone in reducing or waiving certain standards for potential police officers. Philadelphia and New Orleans both got rid of or lowered education requirements. Philadelphia's former police commissioner Charles H. Ramsey called the move an "embarrassment."
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