D.C. mayor wants to nearly double size of police cadet program to attract recruits

From left, Bernard Demczuk and Sharita Thompson, police cadet Joselin Salmeron, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), cadet Quintin White and Police Chief Peter Newsham discuss the cadet program. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)

D.C. officials are seeking to expand the police department’s cadet program for high school graduates, part of an effort to attract homegrown recruits to join a force that the mayor is trying to grow.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced the initiative Monday during a town-hall-style discussion about the program with cadets, the police chief and two professors who help train D.C. officers on culture and diversity.

The mayor said she wants to nearly double the size of the cadet program from the current 107 members to 200. That would also double the cost, from $1.7 million to $3.4 million. It will be part of the police department’s next budget request to the D.C. Council.

Cadets are District residents between the ages of 17 and 24. They are paid $34,000 a year and work a variety of jobs in the department. As they work, the District pays their tuition at the University of the District of Columbia.

Bowser and Police Chief Peter Newsham said the program is instrumental in attracting District residents to the police force. The chief said about 70 percent of the participants enroll in the academy and become police officers, a higher rate of retention than that of recruits who start at the academy. Most of the officers who have come through the cadet program stay on the force at least five years.

Newsham said cadets have a “leg up on all of our recruits” because they already know the city and are familiar with its rhythms. He also noted that many come from troubled areas of the District where trust of police is sometimes a challenge.

“What a better way to change the police than to become one,” Newsham said at the gathering.

Bowser said that police officers “have the ability to make neighborhoods safe” but also that “if not used properly, their arrest powers, guns and badges can make communities unsafe. We know that having good people on the force is the backdrop to a safe city.”

Increasing the size of the cadet program also is a way for the police department to bolster the size of its force, which has 3,811 sworn officers. The department had struggled several years ago when a large number of officers retired and the force was unable to keep up with attrition. Bowser wants 4,000 officers by 2023.

One of the cadets in the current program, Joselin Salmeron, told the group that she grew up in the District in a neighborhood where “the community often had a bad perception of the police. I want to change that perception.”

She said she plans to pursue a career as an officer and wants to be in the department’s special liaison branch, interacting with the Latino community.