rn to serve

campaign, which is considered one of the most important aspects of the Newark Police Department. In fact, when asked about the department’s biggest challenge, Farrall’s answer was quick and decisive — recruitment.

“That’s our highest priority — recruiting new officers,” he said. “We are about 20 percent down in our staffing right now.”

That’s 15 positions from their authorized strength of 77 officers.

In order to address these personnel needs, the department has hired a company to come in and provide assistance in ramping up efforts to fill the necessary positions.

“We’re developing some high-quality video production to highlight the agency and its opportunities, Farrall said. “Our agency is top-notch and we follow all of the best practices in law enforcement.” The series of videos is available by clicking on https://joinnewarkpd.com/.

Farrall said, “Our agency is top-notch and we follow all the best practices in law enforcement.”

The challenge is to get the word out to what is a limited pool of applicants. Currently, the number of people looking to get into the profession is limited, so there are incentives that help to increase the attractiveness of the jobs. Another motivating factor is instruction.

“We will train you,” Farrell said. “We will also take officers that are certified. We have a few of them right now. Two are in training who were previous officers from Baltimore City. Another came from New York…also one who came from the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office. We will send them to a police academy, either the Delaware State Police or the New Castle County Police.”

Over the past few years, in communities large and small across the U.S., there has been what could be called an elephant in the room with respect to the public’s relationship with law enforcement. Farrell was eager to address the issue, and explain how effective the department has been in strengthening its relationship with the community.

“Despite all of the negative incidents and publicity for law enforcement, we in Newark, have not experienced that,” he said.

The reason? Policies and procedures are in place, along with rigorous background investigations conducted on potential applicants.

Farrall explained, “We hold our officers to such a high standard that when all the protests were happening around the summer of 2020, we had a number of protests in Newark, but the people weren’t protesting our agency. They just wanted to have their voices heard on law enforcement in general, and they actually thanked us for the free speech.

“In fact, the police marched with the demonstrators to show their support and we allowed them to have their voices heard. And our community continues to support us because we have not seen those incidents or challenges in our community because of the caliber of officers that we have.”