The WA Police Force is facing a concerning 450 to 500 shortage in new recruitments.
The combination of recent state and federal elections, along with Police Commissioner Col Blanch admitting the need for a bolster in recruitment is critical for the police force to meet their 950 target.
With Western Australia’s increasing population, the need for more officers is now become more apparent than ever before.
During the pandemic, WA police were provided with 950 extra officers from the government, which they have since been trying to recruit permanently, but have struggled in doing so.
There are many reasons as to why this could be.
Officer X (who asked not to be named in the article), believes there are specific reasons as to why the force is struggling to maintain and find staff.
“[There are] better paying jobs and more favourable benefits and conditions,” he said.
It’s a busy schedule with an ever-increasing workload, which offers little chance for breaks.
Officers are expected to work twelve hours plus shifts during sixty plus hour weeks, with minimal downtime for members.
With senior staff members left feeling neglected and overworked as priorities remain on training new recruits.
Former police cadet Ben Perkin explained his reason for not pursuing his career further than the three months he lasted in the onboarding process.
“The job is challenging and taxing on social life relationships and family, it’s probably a big reason as to why there’s a shortage,” he said.
Perkin found that not only was the job too taxing on himself, but he realised he would be stuck in a job with the inability to gain greater qualification, to lean back on if choosing to leave the force.
“The main reasons I didn’t want to continue, is I realised that the job probably isn’t for me,” he said.
“My mental health which isn’t that great right now and previously, would have struggled with parts of the job.”
Commissioner Blanch has recognised this, and the struggle to recruit locally.
As of 2024, the force has begun looking globally, particularly from the British Isles, as they previously found successful in this area.
In conjunction with this strategy, Officer X provided his experiences with how he has seen it to be successful.
“Recruitment drives are also being pushed in the UK as part of an effort to attract police officers to WA with AUS Visa’s, this effort seems to be a success as we are seeing more and more transitional police officers from the UK who already come from the policing background,” said Officer X.
There are also another two methods in which he has seen to be rolled out to drive recruitment.
“There has been an increase in advertising … through TV ads and media … which aimed for I believe 800 new recruits in [approximately] 2 years,
Physical requirements have also seen a decline reflecting the desire to get the most numbers they can along with many other minor requirements being lowered.”
The successes of the strategies are still yet to be established, with no updated statistics regarding employment rates being available in 2025 so far.
WA Police are hopeful this recruitment drive is successful, as many of the potential ‘turn-off’ reasons previously stated are shared amongst those who don’t last in their policing career.
