‘I jumped at the chance’: Retired officers return amid police shortages

A view of the Victoria Police Headquarters in Victoria, B.C., on Friday, December 20, 2024.

As younger Canadians increasingly weigh mental health, work-life balance and public perception when choosing a career, police departments are finding fewer recruits willing to wear the badge, prompting police in B.C.’s capital to temporarily bring retired officers back to the front lines.

“To come back on the road, to do what I love doing, to work as a constable instead of a supervisor - this time with junior members - I jumped at the chance,” said Sean Millard, who was sworn in on Dec. 31 as the Victoria Police Department’s newest officer, less than a year after he’d hung up his uniform following a 30-plus-year policing career.

Victoria police launched the pilot program this fall, allowing recently retired members to return to active duty on a short-term basis, helping address staffing shortages.

“Police agencies across Canada and certainly throughout North America have had challenges over the last number of years recruiting and retaining police officers, and VicPD is no exception to that,” said Chief Fiona Wilson.

Police services across the country have struggled to recruit new officers as young people seem to be keeping away from a traditionally desirable line of work.

Dan Jones, a cop turned criminologist who chairs the Justice Studies program at Edmonton’s Norquest College, says a lot has changed since he first started out.

“Twenty-five years ago when I applied, we had a thousand applicants for 28 positions,” he said.

Jones says police are still battling negative public perception after the 2020 killing of George Floyd in the U.S. and the global “defund the police” protests that followed.

“I think policing has hit kind of an all-time low when it comes to police legitimacy,” Jones said. “People sometimes see police as an occupying force, which is unfortunate because that’s not what policing is.”

Wilson says she is seeing the same trend, as well as a shift in expectations.

“Generations have changed and expectations with respect to work-life balance have changed,” she said. “But policing has changed as well.”

Jones argues recruitment campaigns must shift away from traditional, action-heavy “macho” imagery toward a more realistic portrayal of police work.

“They still have helicopters and people jumping on boats and all this stuff that I never did, and I don’t think 90 per cent of police officers ever will,” Jones said. “They need to start looking at policing as a helping profession, a compassionate profession.”

Victoria’s police chief says that’s exactly the approach VicPD is trying to take.

“We have members who work with a mental health nurse every day responding to calls with people who are in mental health crisis,” Wilson said.

“We have police officers who work with a child and youth care counsellor who deal primarily with youth who are in crisis,” she added, acknowledging the department needs to better promote all of the different facets of the job she loves.

“It’s still one of the most exciting, righteous professions that I think anyone can get into,” Wilson said.