The NYPD is launching a three-pronged effort to beef up the dwindling ranks of New York’s Finest, including reinstating a timed-run requirement and a reduced college credit condition.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday that the changes are required to hire more cops as the department’s ranks have plunged dangerously in recent years — including among vital sergeants.
“We need more cops, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Tisch said at an Association for a Better New York event.
“The NYPD is in a hiring crisis and this is not a budget problem. Mayor [Eric] Adams has given us all the resources we needed to bring in every class we wanted to bring in, but the applicants just aren’t there,” she said.
“It wasn’t that long ago that people would wait years to get called to join the academy,” Tisch said. “Now we are practically begging people to take the exam, and when they pass we are scrambling to get them hired as quickly as possible. So, what happened?”
The changes call for the department to reduce the minimum number of college credits required to enter the police academy to 24 instead of the current 60.
Police brass said that the department, one of the last major police forces in the country to have college credit requirements, was forced to disqualify 29%, or 2,275 applicants in 2023 alone due to the standard.
The new rules will also give police recruits more credits for completing the six-month academy training regiment based on a recent assessment by the National College Credit Recommendations Service that determined that completing the rigorous training is equivalent to 45 credits, up from the current 36.
Finally, Tisch said a long standing timed-run requirement that was axed in 2023 by controversial then-Chief of Training Juanita Holmes will now be reinstated.
It requires cops and recruits to again complete a 1.5-mile run in under 14 minutes and 21 seconds.
The changes, the department said, “will allow the NYPD to attract more potential officers while maintaining academic and fitness standards.”
The Post reported last month that the number of NYPD applicants as plummeted in recent years — from 18,000 in 2017 to just 8,000 this year, a 55% decline, based on Police Benevolent Association data.
The department currently has 34,475 uniformed officers, down from 40,200 in 2000.
“Public safety and justice are the prerequisites to prosperity, and as we continue to see record declines in crime across our city, we know we must take bold, decisive action to ensure we are doing everything in our power to put more officers on the streets and keep New York City the safest big city in America,” Adams, a former NYPD captain, said in a statement Wednesday.
