Police Recruitment is very important for all law enforcement agencies; seeks to recruit, select, train and retain the best officers possible (Grant et al, 2012). This article will provide the reader with a general understanding of police recruitment and will also discuss some of the problems that occur in police recruitment; past and present, along with remedies for these problems. To become a police officer there are five basic requirements that you must first meet. While these requirements may vary slightly from state to state, they are fairly basic and not difficult to meet. First, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen or at least a permanent resident alien who has applied for citizenship. The next requirement requires a candidate to be 21 years of age by the date of graduation from the Academy. Agencies also have education requirements, which can vary from department to department. Some departments will accept an officer with a high school diploma or at least a GED; while police departments require some form of college education, whether it be a bachelor's degree or a minimum number of college credits. The agencies also require that the applicant have a valid driver's license and that there is a minimum physical fitness requirement to ensure that an applicant is able to keep up with any obstacles he or she may face in the field. When an applicant meets the five basic requirements the selection process begins. This selection process is long and extensive and is extremely competitive. The candidate is subjected to six tests and is required to pass all of them before being able to proceed to training. The first stage of the selection process is usually a written test, which will assess the candidate's basic reading and comprehension skills. Background… half of the paper… what exactly is the process known as police recruitment and how different was it in the 1960s compared to today. In the 1960s, police departments were concerned about not having enough minorities, and now police departments worry about not having enough qualified officers in general. If police departments could better advertise how great it is to be a police officer and how bright the future could be for a hard working officer, I think the retention problem among police departments will decrease dramatically and the amount of qualified applicants will skyrocket. All in all, police recruitment is an important part of law enforcement and if it wasn't for the recruitment and work needed to prepare officers in the field, who knows what kind of chaos could have resulted from having unsuitable officers patrolling the streets and kept citizens safe every day.