You may proceed in your own way. I suppose that nothing would be gained by reading the report in detail in view of the fact that it will be available as soon as it is filed today and the Government Printing Office can print it. It will be incorporated by reference into these hearings. You might summarize the procedures that you followed and the conclusions that you reached in your work as a consultant for this Subcommittee.

(The report is printed as House Report 12, 90th Cong., 1st sess.) (Discussion off the record.)

Mr. WHITENER. All right, sir. Now we will go back on the record. Proceed, Mr. Harvey.

STATEMENT OF MALACHI L. HARNEY, COMMITTEE CONSULTANT

Mr. HARNEY. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to follow this report somewhat closely but try to summarize it in the interest of time. This is an assignment of limited time, of course, and it is subject to that limitation. But I hope that I am able to bring a reasonably accurate picture of some of the recruitment and retention problems of the Metropolitan Police Department.

INTRODUCTION

Pursuant to instructions from you, Mr. Chairman, I have made inquiry to determine why so many officers resign from the Metropolitan Police Department, creating a situation in which, despite rather intensive recruiting efforts, it has not been possible to bring the complement of the Washington, D.C., police force up to its full quota.

The necessity for this study stems in part from observations made on this point in the report of the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia on the Metropolitan Police Department, released July 24, 1966 (later incorporated into the report of the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia, USGPO, 1966).

In this investigation, I have made note of collateral matters which came to my attention and which seem to have a bearing on the House District Committee's study of the Metropolitan Police Department, and some comment thereon will appear later in this report.

Just before coming on this assignment, I had occasion to be in the West and took the opportunity to interview officials of a large Midwest police department (Minneapolis, Minn., population 476,000) and of a large west coast police department (Los Angeles, Calif., population 2,768,100) concerning their recruitment and retention problems. These show interesting similarities with some differences to those of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department.

DOCUMENTATION STUDIED

When I came on this assignment, I made an extensive study of some of the documentation of the President's Commission on Crime on the Metropolitan Police Department. This includes the following:

1. Report of the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia on the Metropolitan Police Department,

released July 24, 1966, (hereinafter called the Commission's Police Report, Exhibit #1).

2. A Survey of the Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C., by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, April 1966 (hereinafter called the IACP Report, Exhibit #2). This is a very extensive document which goes into practically every phase of the operation of the Metropolitan Police Department. I think it is an excellent and professional job.

3. Recruitment and Retention Factors in the Metropolitan Police Department, prepared for The President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia and the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, Washington, D.C. by Staff, Century Research Corporation, Arlington, Virginia, July 1966 (hereinafter called the Century Report, Exhibit #3). This I think, also, though it is a limited report, is an excellent document of its kind.

With this basic material, I considered that I would try to elaborate on some aspects which occurred to me might not have been covered, and to look into some of the more recent developments in the Metropolitan Police Department.

The Commission's Police Report (Exhibit #1) is a 90-page printed document covering numerous facets, many interrelated, of the operation of the Metropolitan Police Department. This includes an extensive discussion of recruitment and retention, promotion, diversification of personnel, training and lateral entry into the MPD (p. 17 et seq.). The President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia was made up of a group of 9 distinguished citizens. Purportedly their report relies to a considerable degree on other reports, two of which are mentioned above.

The IACP Report (Exhibit #6) states that it is a 7-month study of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. performed under contract with the President's Commission and with the assent of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Police Department. This report was compiled under the IACP'S Director of Field Operations Division with a staff of 8. This document also explores many facets of the operation of the Metropolitan Police Department, including recruitment and retention. It is a large volume, 464 pages, offset printed, with 65 appendix pages and other attachments.

The Century Report (Exhibit #3) describes itself as a study performed by Century Research Corporation for the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia and the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance. This report covered a survey of dropouts from the Police Department for the preceding two years. Their survey was terminated in April. So I decided I would look closely at the people who had resigned from the Metropolitan Police Department since that time. And I took the period up and through November of last year.

I think that my survey of the files and inquiries which I made to a considerable degree validated, if I may use the word, the findings of the Century research people.

Apparently the Century survey was performed mostly by questionA study was made of four groups of people either employed as officers by the Metropolitan Police Department in the preceding

2 years, or persons who had applied for appointments as policemen and subsequently declined such appointment. These groups included: 1. Those who had applied and subsequently declined.

2. Those presently on the Force.

3. Those who had resigned.

4. Police Cadet Corps.

Of 153 questionnaires sent out to those who declined appointment, 80 responded in time for their questionnaires to be scored. Of the 153 questionnaires sent out to those who resigned, 57 responded rapidly enough to be included in the analysis.

To make up Group 2, those presently on the Force, from a roster provided by the Metropolitan Police Force listing all officers who were sworn in on or since January 1, 1962, (through March 1966) the Century staff selected 133 names of members reported as having been born in the District of Columbia. Of these, 56 could be conveniently scheduled for 1-hour interviews.

In Group 4, composed of the Cadet Corps of the MPD, time was available for testing 14 of the total of 16.

Survey forms for all groups were divided into 3 sections:

The first asked for information relating to the demographic and economic background of the respondent.

The second part was oriented toward gaining an understanding of the factors which led the respondent to apply for a position on the MPD.

The third section differed slightly. For those who de-
clined appointment, the emphasis was on their reasons for
withdrawing their applications and what type of work they
chose in preference to joining the MPD.

For the Cadets a slightly different procedure was used.
Two interviewers administered the questionnaire to 14 of the
Cadets assembled in a group for the occasion during a regular
working day.

For those in group 1, the questionnaire was 11 pages long; for groups 2 through 4, 13 pages. Most of the questions were answerable by simply encircling a number, which indicated how favorably or unfavorably the respondent regarded some aspect of police work. A second response mode was employed for questions of fact, such as marital status. These required only a check mark to answer. third type of question could be considered "open ended" and left a blank space to be filled in in sentence form by the respondent.

The

Apparently, in most of the cases where "outsiders" were involved in answering questionnaires, an honorarium of $2.50 was paid the responder for a completed questionnaire.

The survey method has been described in some detail as an indication of its probable worth and to show ground covered. Some interesting and potentially valuable conclusions can be drawn from this project. These will be commented on in this report. The Century Report makes a booklet of 88 mimeographed pages, with an extensive attachment of exhibits.

Taken all together, the documentation referred to above represents explorations into nearly all facets of the management and operation of the Metropolitan Police Department.

According to published accounts the Metropolitan Police Department is proceeding rapidly to put many of the Commission's recommendations into effect. It is to be hoped that these documents will be widely read by administrative people in the Police Department In the future they should serve as valuable reference material.

It is the desirable and often happy experience of an organization subjected to outside surveys that the review reports serve to concentrate, organize and recommend many desirable objectives which the executives of the department, up to that time, had advocated but had not been able to put into effect, either because of lack of funds, lack of time, lack of appropriate management organization, or for some other reason. Hopefully, much of the IACP Report material will be in that category. There are some ambiguous and some apparently contradictory approaches, both in the IACP Report and in the Commission Police Report, which suggest careful deliberation on some aspects of the recommendations. These will be detailed and commented on in this report.

The Commission Police Report (Exhibit #1) has been called a blueprint for action in the Metropolitan Police Department. Admirable as it may be, it is at best a contribution from outsiders of varying "expertise" in the police field, and one would hope that it would be considered as a guide rather than a Bible.

OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Since rather extensive ground had been covered by the questionnaire procedure, I considered other approaches to determine the "real reasons" for premature resignations from the Metropolitan Police Department. I have been using the following practices, among others, with some success, I hope:

1. Interviewing_officials of various rank in the hierarchy of the Metropolitan Police Department.

2. Interviewing persons connected with rank and file organizations of the Metropolitan Police Department.

3. Interviewing, at the precinct level, persons who were in close association as supervisors and as working partners of the resignees.

4. Interviews at nearby area police departments where numerous young Metropolitan Police Department officers have sought employment, interviews being with supervisors and working companions and resignees to determine reasons for preferring employment there. All interviews are on an off-the-record basis as far as identifying persons is concerned.

5. Interviewing some persons connected with the preparation of Exhibits #2 and #3, the IACP Report and the Century Report, to clarify details.

6. An exhaustive file-by-file examination of the personnel records of new appointees who have left the Metropolitan Police Department since April 1966 (just prior 2-year period was covered by the sampling of the Century Report).

7. Interviews at a large nearby police department (Baltimore. Maryland) to determine its experience with current recruitment. retention, and other comparable problems.

It is thought that this has furnished sufficient "triangulation" so that taken with the earlier studies referred to, some conclusions about the motivation of police resignees can be expressed with confidence.

RESIGNATIONS OF WASHINGTON POLICE

As I see it, there is no problem in the Metropoliton Police Department respecting the defecting of mature officers, those who have had a considerable length of service. This is due, I conclude, to the admirable pattern of the Metropolitan Police Department retirement system, which does not allow nondisability retirement until age 50 and encourages men to stay after that age. But there is a very serious loss in the earlier years.

The IACP Report (Exhibit #3), p. 90, states:

While the Metropolitan Police Department is not alone in having to contend with the problem of recruitment, and although the total departmental turnover rate of 8 percent is within tolerable limits, Washington nevertheless has one of the highest resignation rates among major cities. The average resignation rate over the past 3 years has been slightly in excess of 4 percent per year, a rate exceeded by few cities. a great percentage of the loss occurs in the first 3 years of service. Since 1962, appointments have exceeded losses in personnel strength. However, increases in authorized strength have more than offset this balance. (Emphasis supplied).

The impact of these losses was graphically stated in the following editorial in the Washington Post of December 17, 1966:

GRAVELY OUTNUMBERED

Washington's accelerated hemorrhage of crime would be less frightening if it did not coincide with an appalling attrition in the police force. While the crime rate was skyrocketing in November, the number of men available to combat lawlessness was shrinking. Last weekend when the city experienced almost a riot of hoodlumism, Chief Layton didn't have enough men to respond to all the robbery calls.

The crime record for November looks as if the muggers and holdup men were moving in to reap a harvest from this deplorable situation. Serious crimes increased by 622 over the comparable figure for November, 1965, a scandalous increase of 30.8 per cent. The total number of serious crimes mounted to the almost unbelievable figure of 2644 for a single month. In part this undoubtedly reflects the inability of the police to cope with lawlessness on a wholesale scale.

In these circumstances the continued loss of policemen creates a perilous situation. Yesterday the force was 286 men below its authorized strength, and the forecast is for a deficiency of 300 men by Jan. 1. The attrition continues despite a substantial increase in salary only a few weeks ago and a vigorous recruitment campaign.

Undoubtedly the police could add more men to their ranks by lowering the entrance standards, but we hope they will