National Police Week is from May 15 to May 21, 2023. Because so much of what Caliber Public Safety does supports law enforcement, it is always a good time to acknowledge the men and women of law enforcement working to keep our communities safer. According to USAFacts.org, violent crime fell by 1.7 percent in 2021 after growing by 4.6 percent in 2020. Property crime fell by 4.5% in 2021. Governments spent $267 billion on law enforcement and corrections in 2020, the most since at least 1980. The number of police officers per 100,000 people fell by almost 7 percent from its peak in 2009 to 2021. Law enforcement personnel cleared 16% of “Part 1 crimes” (an arrest was made or something like the death of an offender prevented the arrest) in 2021, while more than 5.5 million people were in some way involved with the criminal justice system in 2020. Drug crimes are declining, while suicides and homicides per 100,000 people increased from 2020 to 2021.
The number can be a little hard to pin down, but there are about 325,000 police officers working in the United States alone. About 17 percent of those are women and 83 percent are men. The average age of police officers is around 40 years old (not surprising, given the typical career track in law enforcement). But there is a darker side to law enforcement statistics: Police officers are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty, and while national rates of suicide declined in 2020 (before increasing in 2021), law enforcement suicide rates did not decline at the same rate in 2020.
These are all just numbers that do a poor job of conveying the full picture of law enforcement. National Police Week was instituted to honor the men and women of law enforcement specifically because they do a job that is so incredibly difficult and risky. It’s a job that takes a toll, and the overwhelming majority of police officers and support personnel in law enforcement are under tremendous pressure. The fact that they continue to bear this pressure, do their jobs, and help keep their communities safer despite the demands of the job says a great deal about the people who choose law enforcement as a profession.
Robert Kennedy once said, “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.” While law enforcement personnel are not perfect – they are just people, like anyone else – they represent, on the whole, some of the best within our community, continually putting their lives on the line (while dealing with family pressures, career struggles, and countless other issues) to make our communities safer and more secure. Without law enforcement, there can be no stable society. Caliber Public Safety salutes the men and women of law enforcement on the occasion of National Police Week. Thank you, every one of you, for what you do for all of us.
