For all the talk of recruitment struggles at the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, some local agencies are finding that hiring new officers has gotten easier.
Take the California Highway Patrol, which in November graduated a class of 146 officers from its academy in West Sacramento. The statewide agency, which mainly polices traffic violations on freeways and oversees state property, has sworn in more than 600 new officers this year — a total that many departments would envy.
While citing many of the same reasons that experts have given for why fewer people are going into law enforcement — continued scrutiny over officer misconduct, relatively low pay compared with other less dangerous professions, and a general lack of interest in long careers in government service — CHP Commissioner Robin Johnson said that some of the agency’s recruitment problems were internal…