Editorial: Pittsburgh needs more police

Problems exist nationwide in recruiting and retention of police. There are almost 18,000 police agencies in the United States, and many have been seeing their ranks thin since 2019. The International Association of Chiefs of Police surveyed departments in 2024 and found, on average, departments operating at about 91% capacity.

Pennsylvania faces the same issues. Sometimes it is a lack of interest in a demanding and potentially dangerous career. Sometimes it’s the instability of working for departments that might be cut or regionalized. Sometimes it’s low pay, which not only can make the job unattractive but also leave departments open to having their people poached by another agency.

So what is the problem in Pittsburgh?

The city’s Bureau of Police stands at 755 officers. That might be a lot if you’re measuring against a borough struggling to keep someone on the streets 24/7. It’s not when you’re the second-largest city in Pennsylvania.

It is the fewest number of officers the force has had since 2005. The decline, like the national numbers, has been a free fall since 2019 — the last time Pittsburgh had more than 1,000 officers.

But 755 doesn’t mean 755, either. That might seem OK if those were how many people actually patrolled Downtown, the South Side and other neighborhoods where crime is in the spotlight.

The actual number of officers on patrol beats is 269. The other 486 are a mix of other people doing important jobs. They are commanders who keep the system functioning. They are lieutenants and sergeants handling supervisory roles, and they are detectives and special units with their own specific tasks.

When you think about Pittsburgh being patrolled by just 269 beat officers, it puts the numbers in a very different framework. That’s one beat cop for every 1,115 Pittsburgh residents.

The city — and the region, to be fair — experienced a violent weekend, with six separate shootings. Four were in Pittsburgh.

Mayor Ed Gainey dismissed these as ‘isolated incidents.” Pittsburgh Public Safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz said they were not related and don’t show an increase in violence.

The numbers overall don’t suggest otherwise. Homicides are down this year. There have been 32 homicides as of July 7. That’s down from 53 last year, 55 in 2023 and 64 in 2022.

But that doesn’t mean there are enough police officers on the streets. Homicides aren’t the only crimes. Visible police presence is often seen as a deterrent to incidents.

There were 103 retirements or resignations in 2024 and 102 the year before that. Another 33 have departed this year. It’s a constant erosion with little replacement.

The city needs to find a way to stop the bleeding. Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, the Democratic nominee for Pittsburgh’s mayor, is right when he says it’s not about bonuses. This isn’t an issue that any city can necessarily spend its way out of. If it were, that would have been noted and solved.

But this is an issue that needs to be addressed both critically and quickly before it has steeper consequences.

With federal programs being cut and potentially impacting the homeless population, there promises to be more issues for police to face. Pittsburgh is months away from hosting the NFL Draft, which will welcome as many as a million people to the Steel City.

Sufficient law enforcement will be necessary. Right now, it doesn’t have the numbers.