New FBI Data Shows Large Police Departments Are Growing Again
New police employment data for 2025 released by the FBI a few weeks ago confirms what I already suspected — large police departments are mostly starting to grow again having shrunk considerably after COVID. Big agencies lost tons of officers in the years after COVID with more than 65 percent of police departments representing cities of 250,000 or more shrinking from 2019 to 2022.
The problem was even more acute in bigger cities. More than three quarters of agencies representing cities of 500,000 or more lost officers from 2019 to 2022. They shrank a little bit less in 2023 and largely stopped shrinking in 2024.
Now, they’re growing. Below is the share of departments for each population group that shrank in a given year relative to the year before it. Only 38 percent of the 86 agencies representing cities of 250,000 or more shrank in 2025 (33 agencies). Two agencies remained the same size and 51 grew.
Large agencies aren’t shrinking anymore, but they’re generally much smaller now than they were in 2019 while smaller agencies have generally grown. This pretty closely fits a pattern — a lot of officers left large police departments in the years after COVID, but they didn’t leave policing altogether. Instead, these officers appear to have largely gone to smaller cities and county law enforcement agencies.
Staffing was down nearly 10 percent in 2025 relative to 2019 in the 15 agencies that had the most officers in 2019 (and reported consistent for 2022 to 2025). Only four of those 15 agencies had more officers in 2025 than they reported in 2019.
There are five agencies from cities of 250k or more that lost more than a quarter of their officers between 2019 and 2024, and four of those five agencies grew in 2025.
The timing of the FBI release fortuitously coincided with an annual survey from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The PERF survey encompassed responses from just under 200 agencies nationwide and looked at staffing totals on January 1 of each year.
PERF’s survey found staffing up relative to 2022 (the first year of the survey) with a consistent increase in the number of new officers hired each year since 2022 — including a large jump in 2025. Hiring increased from 8,541 in these agencies in 2021 to 12,007 in 2025. The increase in hiring in 2025 was particularly strong in large agencies according to the PERF survey.
Resignations fell from 5,460 in 2022 to 4,012 in 2025 and retirements were down a bit, from 6,230 to 5,552 over that same span.
The trend in law enforcement staffing is clear thanks to fast, clear data from the FBI. Medium and large cities lost officers in the wake of COVID while smaller agencies and the suburbs generally gained them.
The hiring environment still isn’t great for police officers, but it is far improved from where it was three or four years ago. Most medium and large police departments will likely be stuck at considerably smaller levels than they were pre-COVID, but the evidence suggests they might see slow and steady growth over the next few years.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks to those of you that have used the Crime Data Assistant! Keep giving it a try, it is being actively improved and the more users the more it improves. I will write a post about all the under the hood changes and a Crime Data Assistant 2.0 launch in the not too distant future.
New on the Jeff-alytics Podcast
For decades, the response to rising crime has been fairly predictable: increase penalties, increase sentences, and hope it works. My guest today says that framework misses the point. Greg Newburn is the Director of Criminal Justice at the Niskanen Center, where his work focuses on reducing both crime and punishment at the same time through evidence-based policy.
You can also catch it on the Jeff-alytics YouTube page where I’ll be posting episodes and video clips, so be sure to like and subscribe there if you’re so obliged!
And while you’re here, be sure to check out these other recent great episodes:
Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden
Senator Chris Murphy
Manhattan Institute Senior Editor Charles Fein Lehman
Is there a possibility that property crimes are growing dramatically and victims have given up reporting because of lack of enforcement and prosecution?
Interesting choice of green / red colors for the change in officers chart.