The Rand Corporation & DHS’s national police recruitment program

The Homeland Security and Defense Center conducts analysis to prepare and protect communities and critical infrastructure from natural disasters and terrorism. Center projects examine a wide range of risk management problems including coastal and border security, emergency preparedness and response, defense support to civil authorities, transportation security, domestic intelligence programs, technology acquisition, and related topics.

Rand also recruits police officers nationwide:

The RAND Police Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse. The RAND Center on Quality Policing, is a web-based resource that serves as a “one-stop-shop” for information about recruitment and retention specifically designed for the law enforcement community. Its purpose is to promote evidence-based personnel planning by making information on police staffing readily available for police decisionmakers in an easy to use, searchable form.

This project utilizes an interactive map to model the number of police and other “security workers” that are expected in each block group in the United States based on that area’s characteristics. Police departments may be able to use this data to focus their employee recruiting activities where they will be most effective.

A quick look at Rand’s recruitment page reveals close ties to COPS.

Rand has a searchable state database to recruit police and security.

Select a location from the list below. The map will appear first, followed by a color-coded layer a few seconds later. Clicking on the map will display each block group’s actual number of security workers, the predicted number, and the population. Drag the map or zoom in to find a specific location.

Here’s a few of Rand’s/DHS’s recruitment articles:

1) Police Recruitment and Retention for the New Millennium

2) Recruiting and Retaining America’s Finest

3) Improving Police Recruitment and Retention

Each year DHS and RAND select a senior DHS analyst to work and study for up to a year at the RAND Corporation. The DHS Fellowship is co-sponsored by RAND Justice, Infrastructure, and Environment (JIE) and the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).

DHS participates in this program to 1) develop up-and-coming leaders with the strategic analysis and planning skills needed to meet the challenges of a complex organization, 2) help achieve the Department’s broad mission set by studying with nationally-known RAND researchers on critical homeland defense issues, 3) form effective partnerships outside of the Department and provide RAND continuous exposure to DHS operations, and 4) support the innovations needed to better manage finite DHS resources.

Contact Henry Willis, Director of the RAND Homeland Security Program, to learn more about the DHS Fellowship.

DHS’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) coordinates the annual nomination and selection process, which starts in the spring allowing for a fall start-date. Contact the government lead, Alinda Coats, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, (202-447-0511), for more detailed information on this process.

2) “Building on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review to Improve the Effectiveness and Efficiency of DHS“