The Staffing Crisis: More Leaving Than Coming In

Agencies across the country are under siege from departures. Between 2019 and 2022, resignations rose by 47% and retirements by 19%, creating a gap that hiring is struggling to fill. 

A 2022 PERF survey showed that 55% of responding agencies reported a decline in full-time sworn personnel between 2020 and 2022. Moreover, many departments report that resignations and retirements are outpacing new hires, forcing agencies into a dangerous reduction spiral. 

In Illinois, one state-level survey noted that in 2021, resignations jumped 65% from the prior year while retirements increased 7%.

These trends mean that many agencies are under-resourced not from budget cuts, but from attrition.

The Wellness Toll: Burnout, Stress, and a Workforce at Risk

As staffing thins, the mental and physical burdens on officers and analysts grow heavier. The data paints a stark picture:

• In a 2024 study, one in four officers (25%) reported experiencing PTSD, anxiety, or depression at some point in their careers, and 80% said chronic stress affects their well-being.
  
• The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) survey revealed 53.6% of active officers reported “high levels of burnout,” while 44% (including active and former officers) reported psychological distress.
  
• In another FOP / NBC survey, 79% of officers said they have experienced “critical stress” during their career, and 90% said stigma is a barrier to seeking help.
  
• Among more recent reports, 40% of respondents said they’d had a “near miss” on the job due to stress and fatigue; 16% admitted to suicidal thoughts in the past year.
  
• The PORAC health and wellness brief cites that burnout, emotional exhaustion, and prolonged stress contribute to frequent absences, turnover, and serious mental health issues.

Taken together, these figures make one thing clear: wellness isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s foundational to a functioning, stable department.

Why Time-to-Insight Matters More Than Ever

When your staff is stretched thin, every second wasted is a risk. Traditional systems force analysts and officers into slow, manual workflows, exporting spreadsheets, juggling multiple systems, reformatting data, and stitching together reports. For teams already short-staffed, that overhead is untenable.

A faster, smarter system that collapses hours of work into minutes is no longer optional, it’s operational necessity.

How ForceMetrics’ Velocity™ Platform Delivers

ForceMetrics built the Velocity™ Platform precisely to help agencies amplify capacity while reducing cognitive burden. By unifying data across CAD, RMS, LPR, jail, court, and other systems into a single workspace, it removes friction and accelerates insight.

Here are two standout capabilities:

• FMStat™
  An analytics engine tailored for law enforcement, FMStat™ gives supervisors and analysts one-click visibility into clearance rates, case trends, workload heat maps, and performance metrics. No more manual report-building; leaders get actionable dashboards instantly.
• Insights
  This feature identifies hidden connections among people, locations, and incidents. For example, it may flag a suspect’s vehicle associated with multiple thefts across jurisdictions, even when identifiers differ. By doing the “detecting” work upfront, Insights frees analysts to act — not chase.

The Result: Gaining Back Capacity

With ForceMetrics, you don’t just collect metrics, you turn them into decisions. Even with fewer staff, agencies can:

• Reduce hours spent on reporting and data wrangling
  
• Surface patterns and anomalies in minutes rather than days
  
• Redirect analysts and officers to mission-critical tasks
  
• Alleviate stress by removing repetitive workload and information overload

Every minute saved is someone’s shift less burdened, a small relief in a high-stakes environment.

Wellness as an Operational Strategy

Wellness programs are vital, but they must be complemented by systems that reduce workload stress. ForceMetrics plays a role here in several ways:

• Lowering cognitive load by presenting clear, consolidated views
  
• Ensuring balanced workloads through performance dashboards that show who is overloaded
  
• Giving space for recovery by saving time previously swallowed by manual tasks
  
• Helping leaders prioritize rest and recovery rather than forcing staff into overdrive

In short, technology becomes part of a holistic wellness strategy, not a luxury.

Mission Critical in Today’s Reality

When staffing is strained and wellness is at risk, efficiency is not optional, it’s imperative. The next wave of successful agencies will not be those that hire fastest, but those that empower their teams with tools to operate under pressure.

ForceMetrics gives you the path to keep communities safe, even when resources are limited. By accelerating insights, automating burdens, and facilitating decision-making, it helps teams maintain momentum without burning out.

Because in public safety, success is not how much data you collect, but how fast you turn it into action.

If your agency is wrestling with staffing gaps or struggling to protect wellness, ForceMetrics can help. Request a demo of Velocity™ to see how fragmented data becomes operational clarity, giving your team the capacity to do more with less, sustainably.