Since 2009, 61 police officers have left the Layton Police Department. Of those, eight were fired, nine retired and 12 left to work for other police agencies. In addition, eight officers never completed training, and 24 have quit law enforcement altogether.
Layton isn’t an outlier. Across the state, officers are leaving the profession “at a very quick rate,” Salt Lake City police Detective Greg Wilking said.
“We are hurting for people to have interest in our profession,” Stephenson told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Agencies are struggling to recruit and retain officers partly because ofdiminished benefits to the state’s retirement system, as well as intensified nationwide scrutiny due to high-profile shootings of civilians by officers and concern for their own safety amid escalating hostility toward police.