A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor’s car was stolen — at 4:30 am, a surveillance camera caught the thief backing it out of the driveway, never to be seen again. The police were called, and you can guess the rest of the story. You only need to read about the litany of property crimes in Colorado Springs on the Nextdoor app to get an idea of how bad things are.

Although Gov. Jared Polis has set a goal to make Colorado “a top 10 safest state in the nation”, that’s a stretch, considering that we have the fourth highest crime rate, and Denver has earned the dubious distinction as the No. 14 most dangerous place to live. The Democrat-controlled Colorado General Assembly is in session, busily passing bills for the governor’s signature, so what are they doing to address this crime wave? Unfortunately … not much.

We are at a critical juncture, as Colorado law enforcement agencies struggle to keep their ranks staffed — if you take a look at the current job openings, there are almost 200 statewide.

From Montrose to Sterling, agencies are trying their best to find new recruits and lateral transfers, and for the first time since 2017, the Colorado State Patrol opened a rare lateral academy pathway to address their shortfalls. After the riots of 2020, there was an exodus of officers taking retirement, moving out of state or leaving the law enforcement. At the same time, there were calls for “defunding the police” which led to budget cuts and academies being canceled.

After this, the public faced increasing violent and property crime, so there was a call to “refund” the police, but it was too little, too late. In the wake of the recent East High School shootings, Denver Public Schools wants 160 police officers immediately, but the Denver Police Department doesn’t have the people right now, so how do they explain this to the students and their parents?

Where is the next generation of Colorado cops going to come from? Consider this — working as a cop is one of the most dangerous jobs out there, with 245 line of duty deaths reported nationwide last year.

The hours are long, and your contacts with the public might be confrontational and violent. You might be allowed to collectively bargain, but you can’t strike, and in Colorado you have no federal workplace protections, because OSHA standards do not apply to public sector employees.

Commercial truck drivers and airline pilots have strict hours of service rules, yet no such requirements exist for police, who might be severely fatigued when called to make critical life or death decisions. Low pay, poor working conditions, and the elimination of qualified immunity not only puts the officers’ jobs at risk, but their financial stability as well.

It is admirable that there is anyone who still wants to serve, but many are just “waiting it out” until they have enough years of service to retire with their pensions. There are some glimmers of hope — state funds have been allocated to help pay for academy training for new recruits, and some departments have made plans to give their officers signing and retention bonuses. On the other hand, some agencies have reportedly lowered their standards in an attempt to recruit new officers. We have only to look to the past in Miami in the 1980s, or more recently in Memphis, Tenn., when large scale hiring of officers with substandard qualifications resulted in terrible fallout for those departments.

Cops are human, and they make mistakes, so perfection can never be achieved. They must be paid appropriately for putting their lives on the line on a daily basis, and they deserve workplace protections far in excess of what they now have — reasonable work and rest hours; two-person patrol cars, and the recognition that violent criminal behavior requires an appropriate use of force. If you don’t like the job that cops in Colorado are doing now, you can certainly step up, attend an academy and put on a badge, body armor and a gun belt. Until then, be prepared to have the police not always show up when you call them, and get used to online crime reporting.

The people who are still willing to serve need to be treated and valued better, lest we continue to lose these brave individuals, as they quit or move to other states that are more welcoming.