Olha Yarynich, Contributing Photographer

On Thursday afternoon, 19 new police recruits were sworn in at City Hall, which officials are saying will help address the ongoing shortage of officers at the New Haven Police Department. 

According to NHPD Assistant Chief David Zannelli, the department has a total of 82 sworn positions that are currently vacant, including 47 in patrol. This limits the NHPD’s ability to respond to calls for service, he said. Recruits will undergo training and join the force in May upon successful completion of the program. 

“Although we’re still a little short, this does bring our numbers up to a better place,” New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson said at the swearing-in ceremony. “I thank you for having the courage to go through this process and sit here and be ready to join the New Haven Police Department.”

Jacobson emphasized that NHPD is committed to hiring a diverse group of police officers. This class of recruits includes six women. Sixteen of the 19 recruits are women and/or racial minorities, Jacobson said.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker thanked recruits, as well as their families, for making “sacrifice on [their] part” and supporting the future officers. He called on the recruits to “always make good decisions,” on and off the job. 

Vacancies in city police limit service

Vacancies in the police department have made it difficult to respond to all calls for service, especially with 13,000 more calls for service this year compared to 2022 numbers, according to Zannelli. 

“We need to respond to the things that are potentially life and death first, so being low staff sometimes aggravates the community because we can’t respond as quickly as we’d like to,” Zannelli said. “I’d like to have 10 or 12 [School Resource Officers], we only have five. I’d like to have a walking beat in every district. We just can’t do that.”

There are 394 full-time sworn police officer positions in the city’s budget. Currently, 344 positions of those positions are filled — including the latest class of 18 new recruits from last week — which translates into 87 percent of positions being filled.

Zannelli attributed this shortage to the negative portrayal of police in social media in America in recent years as well as low work compensation and benefits New Haven police officers receive. 

Zannelli argued there was a generational change in the perspective on the profession, as he said people focus on instances of police brutality such as the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. 

“The new generation is just not interested in law enforcement because of the negative media spin and some of the unrealistic expectations put on police officers nowadays,” Zannelli told the News. “That’s one of the pieces that people often cite to us … it’s a thankless job.”

In addition to negative sentiment surrounding policing in America, salary and working conditions contribute to vacancies in the department.

In New Haven, a starting police officer earns $50,745 annually. In comparison, the starting salary of an officer in Bridgeport is $69,118 and is $78,654 in Waterbury.

Zannelli added that younger workers seek jobs with more flexibility and work-life balance and are not as willing to work the 60 to 70 hours a week that a job in law enforcement requires. The high number of vacancies, he said, only increases the pressure and time commitment for each officer.

“No workplace is perfect,” Nikki Curry, a New Haven police officer who worked in the force for 15 years, told the News. “[But] it’s a fulfilling job … I enjoy coming to work every day, our department is great.”

Curry said she talks to New Haven residents, on and off duty, and tries to get more people to join the NHPD, although she acknowledged that “the climate for policing has changed.” 

There is a similar number of vacancies in the police department as in other city departments, according to data provided by the mayor’s office. 

Excluding vacancies in public schools, there are approximately 230 vacancies out of 1,400 full-time positions in city government. This reflects an 16 percent vacancy rate compared to 13 percent at the NHPD, after the addition of the 19 new recruits. 

NHPD pursuing recruitment strategies

To address the shortage, the New Haven police department has used different methods in its recruitment efforts. 

Jacobson said he has put emphasis on recruitment programs, especially youth programming, since he was sworn into office in July 2022. According to him, the NHPD hosts a mentorship program that works with approximately 425 kids per week in athletic programs in hopes of positively shaping their perception of the NHPD. 

“If you take kids from especially a city neighborhood, what they might be getting at home is [that] police are no good, the police are bad,” Jacobson told the News. “So it’s been a thing of mine to start young and get the kids to understand that we’re people, too. That we’re good people, and then, hopefully, they change their mind to want to become cops at some point.”

In addition, the NHPD has invested in other recruitment efforts such as the Clergy Academy, which involved religious leaders of various faiths in the recruitment process, the Residence Academy and the Junior Cadet Program, a training program geared toward potential recruits who are between 13 and 20-years-old. The department, Jacobson said, also continues to recruit veterans and college graduates. 

Jacobson said that the NHPD received a grant from the federal government for recruitment and used it for advertising on social media.

“Data … shows your best recruiting tool is your other police officer saying come to New Haven,” Jacobson said. “So we’ve tried to improve the conditions here. We’re working on a new contract.”

City, union in contentious negotiation over new police contract 

The NHPD has been without a contract for over a year. The city and the police union are currently in contract negotiations. 

Fair Haven/East Rock’s Alder Claudia Herrera published an opinion piece in the New Haven Independent with Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller ’03 in October, calling for “an equitable contract that gives current and future police officers every reason to sign up and stay to serve New Haven.” 

Herrera told the News that she spoke with police officers who are thinking of leaving the department because of working conditions. The biggest concern for police officers, she said, is that there is no contract, and hence no predictability in their work. 

“I myself and additional labor attorneys have been in some ways [involved in negotiations], with the goal of finding an agreement that respects the work of the officers, and also is the right balance of what we can afford in the city,” Elicker told the News about the ongoing negotiations. “The city [has offered] a very reasonable proposal to the police union, and we are continuing back and forth [on] that negotiation. Obviously, both parties want to get the agreements on as soon as possible, but that takes a lot of work.”

Elicker’s positive outlook has not been shared by the police union.

On Nov. 9, the Official New Haven Police Union Page posted on X that Elicker was “checked out,” a year into bargaining.

“What I have seen from Mayor Elicker’s team are delaying tactics, unreasonable demands and a complete unwillingness to engage in the process,” the union account wrote. 

Herrera complained about a lack of communication from the Mayor’s office about the negotiations. 

The New Haven Police Union and Elicker did not respond to the News’ requests to comment on the negotiations in time for this story.

Herrera said that Elicker, Jacobson and New Haven Police Union President ​​Florencio Cotto should sit together and talk through the conditions, with public participation in the process. She said that she and several other alders are trying to organize a public workshop on the negotiations. 

There are 10 policing districts in New Haven.