NOPD recruit class 177 began their 26-week training today adding another 32 officers to NOPD’s force. As such I figured it would be a good time to summarize NOPD recruiting since 2013 with a handy table.

Class 177 is the 9th class since the start of 2013. Those classes have averaged 32.3 recruits who begin training and 27 graduates. That’s good for a 14.1 percent attrition rate which is slightly higher than NOPD’s roughly 9 percent attrition rate over that time. Here’s how the classes have broken out:

Start End Class Recruits Graduates Attrition
Nov-13 May-13 169 29 23 20.69%
May-14 Dec-14 170 30 27 10.00%
Sep-14 Apr-15 171 32 27 15.63%
Jan-15 Sep-15 172 30 29 3.33%
Jun-15 Dec-15 173 33 29 12.12%
Oct-15 Apr-16 174 32 28 12.50%
Dec-15 Jul-16 175 34 26 23.53%
May-16 Nov-16 176 39
Jul-16 Jan-17 177 32

Note that only two NOPD classes have been able to run at the same time. At this capacity, NOPD would be able to fit one more recruiting class into 2016 with another recruiting class likely on the books for mid-January 2017. At this rate NOPD will have roughly 100 to 110 recruits added in 2016 which will most likely translate to around 20 new officers added (including only recruits who graduate.

On the plus side, the schedule is setting up for a favorable recruiting year in 2017 with at least four classes seeming likely. The department would need to increase the number of classes it is able to run concurrently or dramatically increase the average number of recruits per class in order to hit the goal of 150 new officers that NOPD has been budgeted for each of the last few years.