Year two of pandemic continues to hinder law enforcement - khqa.com

MISSOURI & ILLINOIS (KHQA) — Law enforcement has seen dramatic changes since the beginning on the pandemic.

In 2021, 514 officers died across the country and COVID-19 was the cause 341 officers' deaths, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.

Law enforcement organizations have limited or suspended their police academy or in-person trainings in an effort to help stop the spread of the virus.

A rate at which 76% of organizations in the last survey said they did in 2020.

In 2020, 76% of organizations surveyed said they either reduced the class size or stopped the training altogether. In 2021, that number dropped to 55%, meaning law enforcement agencies were increasing their recruiting efforts.

"So that means they are trying to adopt a new normal," said Niyazi Ekici, a Law Enforcement Professor at WIU. "It is still not efficient for the crime prevention activities and physical training."

Ekici is one of the contributors to this study.

He said crime prevention activities play a crucial role in limiting crimes to an area, but there are several factors contributing to the rise in crime such as societal factors and offenders getting out early.

Adams County Sheriff Rich Wagner said the sheriff's office has been able to do more community policing activities now than at the beginning on the pandemic.

"We are getting out in the community more. We have to; We are a police agency. We have to interact with the community in order to keep this safe," Wagner said.

However, he said they are trying to do this with a limited number of staff.

But the pandemic hasn't stopped them from trying to recruit officers, and they've had to go about it in a different way.

"We now have an Adams County Sheriff 's Office Facebook page and that has been tremendous in regard to our recruitment effort for officers," Wagner said.

Ekici thinks the rise in crime, as well all the shortage of police officers, will end in the near future.

"I see this pandemic as an outlier," he said. "Crime rates will be normalized in the near future. Maybe not in one or two years, but it will be normalized."

To see the entire report from Niyazi Ekici and his colleague Dean Alexander, click here.

source: https://khqa.com/news/local/year-two-of-pandemic-continues-to-hinder-law-enforcement

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